Mr. Moto thinks it’s a shame that the citations issued by the US government to soldiers in Iraq aren’t being picked up by the mainstream media and broadcast more widely. While it’s true that there are some soliders acting with indubitable bravery over there, there are a lot more who are very dissatisfied with the situation and are trying to make their voices heard. I think it’s a shame these opinions aren’t being picked up by the mainstream media and broadcast more widely.
So, in the interests of presenting the other side of the argument, I present a semi-monthly magazine called Traveling Soldier. There are plenty of soliders out there who don’t think it’s worth the attempts to buck for a citation and they deserve our attention just as much.
Thanks for the link, Olentzero.
I checked it out closely, along with the website for U.S. Labor Against the War. I can’t say it reflects the broad opinion of the majority of sailors and naval officers I knew when I was in. And I’m a pretty recent veteran.
I can’t say, either, that it reflects the majority opinion of the sailors and naval officers I deal with everyday, since I work as a defense contractor. This can be best described as the view of a small minority.
And, though I can’t speak firsthand for the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force from such experience, I can certainly extrapolate and make an educated guess. This newsletter doesn’t represent a majority view there either.
Do you have any kind of cite for “plenty”?
Well, firstly, Mr. Moto, are any of the people you knew, or deal with in your job, servicemen who have actually been in Iraq?
Googling “troops morale Iraq” yields a number of cites, including a series done by Stars & Stripes. Among other things they conducted a survey of 2,000 reservists and active-duty soldiers stationed around Iraq. I call your attention in particular to Question 13, in which more soldiers rated their unit morale “average”, “low”, or “very low” than both “high” and “very high” combined. And Question 16, in which personal morale leans toward the low side, although not as heavily as unit morale.
Note also this survey was taken back in October 2003 - given the developments of the war and occupation in the last nine months, I think it’s a safe to say “high” or “very high” morale has neither held steady nor increased. Here, in fact, is an article in USA Today detailing the psychological effects of the war released less than a week ago. (I found reference to it in a CS Monitor article from a year ago that says troop morale has “hit rock bottom”. Or you could take a look at this ABC-CBN article which reports a 52% “low morale” response from a March 2004 survey. (Check out the opinion of Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni on the war two paragraphs above that.)
52% responded that their morale was low. Plenty enough for you?
Some servicemembers are Iraq and Afghanistan vets, yes. Please note, though, that this is a different experience for the Navy. It typically means an increased optempo and longer deployments.
I concede that things are far different for the Army and Marine Corps in Iraq and Afghanistan, directly under fire.
However, low morale does not necessarily lead a servicemember to leftist politics. You can’t take the morale numbers and translate them into support for the Traveling Soldier cause.
Sorry.
Traveling Soldier isn’t a cause - it’s just a publication organized as an outlet for soldiers angry at the situation they’ve been put into. Any cause that comes out of it will be organized by the soldiers themselves. I just provided TS as a counterexample to your attempts at celebrating the war; not everybody over there feels as you do and their opinions and voices should be heard over here as well. I never claimed these soldiers were socialists, let alone leftists of any stripe.