Article

2003-10-16 Iraq

Many Troops Dissatisfied, Iraq Poll Finds

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Posted by Anonymous 2003-10-16 12:56:36 AM|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Rantburgers will not be surprised at this

That's true - the Washington Post does have a record of lying about the facts to distort reality.

Fully 40 percent said the jobs they were doing had little or nothing to do with their training.

That is correct. American troops are trained to fight and kill large enemy formations. They are not garrison/occupation troops by training.

A total of 49 percent of those questioned said it was "very unlikely" or "not likely" that they would remain in the military after they complete their current obligations.

The re-enlistment rates in the combat arms (vs the non-combat troops) is generally low. Most of the combat troops sign up to see the world or for the adventure. They've seen the world - had their adventure. Next stop - back to the civilian world.

Note that Dana Milbank is a known Bush-hater who has not hesitated to twist the meaning of developments that seem to favor the president's agenda. Milbank is just another indication of how WaPo is becoming just as liberal as the New York Times. I wonder if the Newsweek editors have taken over. (WaPo and Newsweek are part of the same media conglomerate, but Newsweek reads a lot like the Nation).

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-10-16 1:18:18 AM|| 2003-10-16 1:18:18 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 I guess the proof will be in the pudding, won't it? Either they will or they won't.

Seems like you'd have to compare these results to "normal" or "average" responses (prior to current combat operations) for this to mean anything at all. I note any such comparison is noticeably absent.

Posted by B 2003-10-16 1:32:21 AM|| 2003-10-16 1:32:21 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 wow, troops on deployment overseas who complain. Why, I've never heard of such a thing. Perhaps the next posted article will be:

"young male troops engage in after hour antics such as underage drinking and attempting to procure women of low virtue"
or
" young troops say short hair cuts imposed by military out of step with current fashion"
or
"military wives tend to miss husbands deployed for long period of time"

Do some reporting you slacker, earn your pay. This is not news.

Posted by Frank Martin 2003-10-16 1:46:37 AM|| 2003-10-16 1:46:37 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 I think it's a valid observation--during the Clinton peace many soldiers stayed in the Reserves knowing that their chances of being called up were virtually nil; now that we have a war mongering nut in the White House (or more importantly Blair House) the equation has changed and the go play soldier monthly exercise has turned into--go to Iraq

Posted by Not Mike Moore 2003-10-16 2:27:58 AM|| 2003-10-16 2:27:58 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Zhange Fei

...Dana Milbank is a known Bush-hater...

is there like a register or something? it looks like that whoever disagrees with Dubya's policies is automatically classified as a bush hater.

...American troops are trained to fight and kill large enemy formations

well, yes, and they do that very well, perhaps the US administration should have had a plan on how to manage the country after the conflict was over. instead they pissed off just about every country who would be in a position to send troops (except for the relaibale mongolians of course)

Posted by Igs 2003-10-16 2:58:09 AM|| 2003-10-16 2:58:09 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 during the Clinton peace

hahaha good one, the Pax Clintona.

Posted by Rafael 2003-10-16 3:01:25 AM|| 2003-10-16 3:01:25 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 instead they pissed off just about every country who would be in a position to send troops

You mean all those countries were not pissed to begin with??

Posted by Rafael 2003-10-16 3:04:26 AM|| 2003-10-16 3:04:26 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Rafael...lol...good response, will give credit where it's due

Posted by Igs 2003-10-16 3:07:32 AM|| 2003-10-16 3:07:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 I received one of these surveys about two years ago. Quite amusing. A lot of questions are worded in such a way as to provoke a negative response. This story is funny. When I was overseas I didn't know anyone who would rather be there then back home. However, after we got back, there was not a mass exodus to get out of the service as the reporter says. If you give the young lads a forum to complain in, of course they're gonna take advantage of it. Compared to past generations who really did have it bad - there will always be pissing & moaning about the chow, the weather, the heads, no showers, their boots, the mission, why their there, mail's slow, problems at home, "I miss my mom,wife,girlfriend,dog," etc. Blah,blah,blah. There's an old Marine maxim - Bitching grunts are happy grunts. It's when they stop bitching you need to worry about.

Posted by Jarhead 2003-10-16 7:39:18 AM|| 2003-10-16 7:39:18 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 NMM and Igs: You have just exhibited the classic "seeing what you want to see". Funny thing is that there is nothing to see here, as she gave you absolutely NOTHING to compare it too. There is no metric here. Is 49% LOWER than the response during Pax Clinton years?? You obviously don't know. But your willingness to jump to a conclusion that "whatever, it must be Bush's fault" is what inspires lazy reporters to write opinion rather than fact. Your willingness to buy damaged goods so easily lowers the quality of merchandise for everyone.

Posted by B 2003-10-16 8:11:53 AM|| 2003-10-16 8:11:53 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 i dont see whats the big deal either way.

No its not surprising
1. Many of them have been there a long time - good reason to grouse.
2. Lots of them are doing different jobs then what they trained for. I mean if you trained to be an artillery man, and now you're doing police work, or civil affairs work, you might well be pissed, no?
3. The reservists are particularly unhappy. Yup. They signed up expecting to be called up for civil emergencies, and to go overseas for an acute emergency - like a conventional conflict - i doubt any expected year long assignments overseas or had any reason to. This doesnt mean bush is wrong - the reason to make those assignments are pretty strong. It doesnt mean the reservists are wrong - it IS more than they legitimately bargained for. And its not wrong of the Wapo to report it. It is news. Thats just the way life is sometimes. Sometimes the BEST option still has negative consequences.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-10-16 9:17:16 AM|| 2003-10-16 9:17:16 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 LH - so if an artilleryman were still fighting their way into Baghdad, they'd feel better about it? I don't think so - all of the above except NMM and Igs, your points are taken - nobody wants to be in a foreign land when they could be at home, nobody wants to be in uncomfortable jobs that they didn't particularly train for, yadda yadda, but that's what they signed up for. Pax Clintona gave us NK with nukes, an Iran on the verge of nukes, 9/11, etc. I'd think for your own self-respect you two would think better of bringing that asshat up

Posted by Frank G 2003-10-16 9:36:21 AM|| 2003-10-16 9:36:21 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 is there like a register or something? it looks like that whoever disagrees with Dubya's policies is automatically classified as a bush hater.

Actually, there is a list, but it's not a list of people - it's a list of articles written by Milbank where Bush says "X" and Milbank tells us that Bush is really saying "Y". I don't need liberal "analyses" by mere journalists - just give me the news straight - I can figure the news out for myself without it being shaded by the Democratic media.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-10-16 9:37:24 AM|| 2003-10-16 9:37:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#14 The word I'm getting from my active duty contacts, industry recruiters, and National Guard acquaintences is pretty much in line with the article. It's not just Iraq -- although Iraq has become the bale of straw placed on the camel's back. It's the Ops Tempo.

With contemporary family structure and the role of women, including military wives, in the workforce, the Army finally discoverd that Mom is the real recruiting Sergeant. And if Mom doesn't want to re-up, then Dad is under pressure not to.

The overall forces are being deployed more often, with less clearly defined deployment durations, and with decreased turnaround times at their home stations. In short, their family and home station times are being drastically reduced. Not only are they talking about getting our, but they are acting to do so -- contacting recruiters, trying to move to other units with lower deployment probabilities, and getting out.

At the national leader level, they hear Rumsfeld talking about reducing the Army by two divisions, the Marine Corps by 12 aircraft squadrons, and the Air Force by another 6,000 military personnel -- while indicating that the Guard, Reserves, and Active Duty forces will be deployed even more. It's called a trend.

And there is empirical and anecdoteal evidence that there is a countervailing trend developing -- getting out.

Posted by Highlander 2003-10-16 10:56:29 AM|| 2003-10-16 10:56:29 AM|| Front Page Top

#15 I was stationed in Korea for a year. Nobody was shooting at us, we had cold beer/hot food, cheap hookers, and all the goodies in the BX we wanted. Guess what? People still bitched about being there and at least half of us wanted to be somewhere else. Only crazy people (and Marines) enjoy a place that is dangerous. And recruiting for the military runs in cycles (like the ecponomy) and yes people do get out and then new people come in. A fair amount stay the course and provide the continuity of service. Note: If we started to pull out of some of these 'overpatrolled' regions (Korea, Bosnia, etc) then the ops tempo would relax.

Posted by Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2003-10-16 11:07:54 AM|| 2003-10-16 11:07:54 AM|| Front Page Top

#16 FG - well maybe artilleryman is a bad example (although i suspect what an artilleryman wants is to spend a couple of weeks fighting - and then head home to get trained on newer and better artillery. - Not to baby sit Iraqi mayors, build water pipes) Presumably there are other specialties that would make the point better.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-10-16 11:08:56 AM|| 2003-10-16 11:08:56 AM|| Front Page Top

#17 Hmm, I remember seeing aricles stating the Military has easily met all its recruiting goals this year. I guess the continued march by the left to turn this into a Vietnam and another loss for America continues.

Posted by Patrick 2003-10-16 1:12:50 PM|| 2003-10-16 1:12:50 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 I can't believe Rumsfeld can be this stupid. I usually find him to be level-headed and cautious. We need one of two things: either a larger military, or fewer missions. I don't see either one happening. That means the US military will be stretched to, and possibly beyond, its limits. As for the jobs, we are lousy at occupation. It usually takes is a full year to switch over from being a fighting force to being an occupation force, with the majority of the combat-experienced troops being moved from the war zone before it happens. We don't have enough troops to completely switch out the entire complement of combat troops in Iraq, nor do I believe it's yet reasonable to do that.

I spent four years as a reservist in the late 1970's. I was never called up. Two-thirds of those in my reserve outfit had been there for ten years or more, and hadn't been called up. The expectations have changed from the top, and the lower echelon hasn't caught on yet. Yeah, they're gonna bitch. Maybe they should have read that enlistment contract a bit more closely - they have NOT been mistreated. They're just either lazy or stupid, and should have seen this coming. The information that Reserve/Guard duties were changing has been around for more than ten years now.

I am becoming less and less pleased with the Bush administration, and totally hosed-off at the unmentionable other party for words that come very close to treason. Our national "press" should all be forced to find real jobs, and our academia needs to have to work for a living digging ditches for a few years.

Forgive me, but I'm really, really pissed today. If there were recruiters for the next revolution, I'd gladly sign. Our government, and our nation, are tanking, because too many government employees don't believe in working for their paycheck, and our elected 'officials' think their only 'duty' is to spend my money. "Government efficiency" is an oxymoron. If I have to fill out one more paper one more time because some federal employee lost the original, I think I'm going to go postal. Six times in four months is not 'accidental', and I'm ready to rip some heads off...

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-10-16 1:23:07 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2003-10-16 1:23:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 Note that the regular Army had the lowest morale. This is what I've seen everywhere. If you just interview Air Force, Marines, and Army Rangers and Special Forces, I'd bet the numbers change dramatically. The Army needs to take a page from the Air Force on treating their people right, and a page from the Marines on instilling a sense of self-worth and pride. Treating soldiers like dirt and then asking them to perform open-ended unclear missions is not going to produce high morale. But, the more accurate survey would be to interview the same group a month after they get home. A lot of the boring bad times disappear from memory in a short amount of time in the land of good FDA-approved tap water.

Posted by BossMan 2003-10-16 2:28:42 PM|| 2003-10-16 2:28:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 Statistics will show that more soldiers, sailors airmen and marines are contacting corporate recruiters. This may effect retention in the end - but it is more a result of the popularization of recruiters. When I got out of the service, very few Americans knew about corparate recruiters. Job fair type information didn't start until you were into the seperation pipeline. That all changed when Monstor.com began running commercials.

Most of the army guys will tell each other that things suck but will be secretly proud. That will end when they return home and are thanked by several civilians. I don't think it happened after Viet Nam, but I remember the patriotism in Va Beach after Gulf War I. I remember that Whitney Houston did a benefit concert on the Air Base that meant quite a bit to the people coming home.

Some combat troops will certainly leave the service for good. Others will miss the friendship - the band of brothers mentality. A good many will end up in the reserves down the road.

Posted by Super Hose 2003-10-16 3:04:01 PM|| 2003-10-16 3:04:01 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 "they hear Rumsfeld talking about reducing the Army by two divisions, the Marine Corps by 12 aircraft squadrons"

This is the first time I've heard we're losing 12 squadrons. Highlander, do you recall when Rumsfeld said this? We have about 50 squadrons in active service and 19 reserve squadrons. He might be nixing the reserve squadrons - that could be feasible. However, taking more than 20% of our active duty air power probably is not.

Posted by Jarhead 2003-10-16 3:14:05 PM|| 2003-10-16 3:14:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 OP: I can't believe Rumsfeld can be this stupid. I usually find him to be level-headed and cautious. We need one of two things: either a larger military, or fewer missions. I don't see either one happening. That means the US military will be stretched to, and possibly beyond, its limits.

I think Rumsfeld is cutting units to save money - period. And there are several reasons for this - among others: (1) raising the military budget is politically difficult to accomplish, (2) once raised, the military budget provides the Democrats with a politically-convenient target - why more guns - why not more butter?, (3) we need to allocate more money to researching new weapons systems - the current generation is practically tapped out and (4) men can be trained up relatively quickly, but a decade of research cannot as easily be summoned up, and these days, the quality of weaponry literally makes the difference between victory and defeat.

OP: As for the jobs, we are lousy at occupation. It usually takes is a full year to switch over from being a fighting force to being an occupation force, with the majority of the combat-experienced troops being moved from the war zone before it happens.

It's not so much that we're lousy at occupation as garrison duty inherently diminishes many of our advantages, which pertain to destroying massed and clearly identifiable enemy units. At the same time, it is also true that we will eventually wear them down.*

* It was no accident that the Vietnamese kept on using regiment-sized units to come after US troops during the Vietnam War. Guerrillas need a place to rest and recuperate without having to worry about the next raid. These Vietnamese attacks were designed (but failed) to discourage American search-and-destroy missions that pulverized their staging areas again and again. Iraqi terrorists are going to have considerable difficulty replenishing their ranks, ammo and funding, given the repeated raids that American troops conduct with impunity because of Saddam's lack of a sanctuary.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-10-16 3:55:15 PM|| 2003-10-16 3:55:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 This is true "And if Mom doesn't want to re-up, then Dad is under pressure not to." That's was a serious issue before the war and is certainly a much greater one now. For active duty, it could be easily fixed if they didn't move the families so often. Families can endure the separation, but not if they are moving and losing their support networks. In todays world, spouse's careers and support networks just can't survive the uprooting. In the not so long ago days, you didn't NEED the second income and the wive's club offered the support. Just not true anymore. The services talk the talk about home basing ...but they don't walk the walk. I'm sure that has a huge impact on family pressure to get out.

But that's just for the active duty. For the reserves, it's an occupational hazard. They should have considered the reasons why they were getting such great pay, bennies and retirement for two weeks of play.

Posted by B 2003-10-16 4:17:27 PM|| 2003-10-16 4:17:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 hey B, I never commented on the accuracy or validity of the survey. Having some experience in the design/management and analysis of surveys I know better than to comment unless having all the facts before me

Posted by Igs 2003-10-16 9:31:10 PM|| 2003-10-16 9:31:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 fair enough. But this is hardly the article to get your panties in a wad over someone noting that Dana twists her results to reflect badly on President Bush. Afterall, this just an opinion piece. There is no real reporting here. She simply asked some questions and then, with no basis in fact, gave her own interpretation which reflected negatively on Bush. Perhaps it's not "Bush Hating", but it's a poor example for your point - no?

Posted by B 2003-10-17 10:22:33 AM|| 2003-10-17 10:22:33 AM|| Front Page Top

11:45 NO MOLESTER
10:22 B
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