American troops in Iraq are near-suicidal. Or maybe they couldnt be happier. It all depends on the flavor of blog you read, I guess. But what I found in my time in Iraq didnt cling to any neat political storyline.
Over three weeks in and around Baghdad this July, I spoke to dozens and dozens of soldiers about their views on the conflict. For the most part, morale among these infantrymen and engineers and bomb-disposers was high. Shockingly high, given the fact that they didnt buy the Bush administrations rationales for the war.
Democracy? Here? Are you fucking kidding me? one sergeant laughed, as we drove near the Abu Ghraib prison. This was from a guy from helped safeguard the January round of elections. He figures the place will collapse into civil war as soon as U.S. troops leave.
But hes glad hes in Iraq, regardless. Mostly, because of the insurgents.
The guerillas in Iraq have been brutal, killing way more innocent bystanders than American occupiers or Iraqi collaborators. While I was in Baghdad, a group of soldiers in a nearby neighborhood were handing out candy to bunch of kids. Until a suicide bomber stepped in, and killed 27.
It boggles my mind, how someone can go into a crowd of kids, and kill them all. Ill never understand it. But thats why Im here, said Staff Sgt. Mark Palmer, with the 717th Ordnance Disposal Company, an Army bomb squad. Yeah, its still fun to blow stuff up. But its not the core thing. Figuring out how this shit [the bomb] works. Stopping it from hurting people. Thats the main thing.
U.S. troops are highly trained. So theyll do what theyre ordered. But in order to feel good about their mission, they need a cause. They need a bad guy, a villain, so they can play Captain America. The insurgents have been only too happy to step collectively into the role of Dr. Doom.
The result is a cycle of attack and reprisal that has nothing to do with WMD or drafting constitutions but can easily drag on for years. Most of the soldiers I spoke with didnt expect the deadly feedback loop to stop any time this decade. Im staying [in the Army] until I retire, which is another ten years, one non-commissioned officer told me. So I figure Ill be back here, what, another five or six times?
Most of these GIs were ready to whoop ass, when they first get to Iraq. Theyre part of Americas professional, increasingly-permanent military class. Which means theyve been training for years to go to war with precious few full-out battles to fight. For a solider, this is like the Super Bowl, Captain Greg Hirschey, the 717ths commanding officer, said.
But the Super Bowl is only one day long. To keep going for years and years, they need a mission, a reason to stay and fight. Washington isnt providing. The insurgents are.
And make no mistake, soldiers are staying. Id say three in four of the GIs I spoke with were planning to reenlist. The new, fat bonuses are one reason, of course. But another is the sense that there are real-life psychopaths out there that need to be stopped. It may sound corny. It may sound dumb. But thats what I saw.
THERES MORE: Now, Id be remiss if I didnt throw in a few caveats here. These soldiers we all stationed at Camp Victory, the poshest military base Ive ever seen. Its also one of the safer places would could be in a warzone. Which means better morale. Could soldiers and marines feel differently out in the sticks, where its MREs three times a day and mortars all night? You bet. Also, I was in Iraq in July. Since then, 233 American troops have died over there. That could have been a major morale-changer, too.
AND MORE: Chris is embedded with the 2–2 Batallion of the II Marine Expeditionary Force in the Anbar province. Which means you go read his blog, now.
AND MORE: Joe Katzman’s response is really worth a read.
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Captain America in the Forever War
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Great post, Noah. I’ve spent half of 2005 in Iraq, and I agree with your assessment. GIs are highly trained and highly motivated, even if they don’t buy the Administration’s rationale for the war. One demographic has a notably different attitude, in my experience, and that’s young black enlisted troops who are much more skeptical about their leaders and much more critical of the war. Why this is, I don’t know.
Of course, I don’t trust the troops on the ground to have the best perspectives on the war. They see only through the sights of their rifles, which is an important perspective but a limited one. Senior officers and NCOs tend to have a broader view of the war, but theirs is often highly politicized. The young enlisted guys, the ones with little to lose in speaking their minds, see only the same grubby kids, dirty streets and barren plains day after day.
Last link is borked…
Interesting post-I was in Baghdad from October 2004 to about 8 weeks ago.
The clashing of military cultures was a morale killer-I remember being followed around Victory by a Sergent Major who was unhappy that my turret gunner “ground guided” our humvee from up top, instead of dismounting. He insisted that the gunner had to ride sitting, facing forward-at all times. This silliness is a small example of the stupidity that goes on over there — there is more outside the wire, especially rookies who show up and think that the stateside training is an accurate simulation of the conditions in Iraq.
It seems that common sense has disappeared from some of the military.
The California National Guard Commander in the first link tops any story I have however-He got to Iraq and was shocked that he had to arm his trucks!!! After two years in combat over there, that was a surprise to him.
How do people like that become commanders?
Fixed.
In any large organization you’re going to have clueless wonders. My only beef with the first fracas in the Gulf was that it didn’t last long enough to weed some of these yobs out.
Jerks in base camp are a tradition that goes way back in just about every military organization.
As far as the young black troops being skeptical and distrustful I’d have to ask are these line troops or support troops? My experience was that the dividing line had more to do with their first line leadership and in line units there’s a bit less separation in the day to day life of the soldiers and their noncoms which tends to help establish trust.
Of course, the further away from my span of control things were, the more pessimistic I was about them and vice versa
Great post — thanks! Note that only 13 countries other than the US have 300 or more troops in Iraq, and several of them will probably insist on withdrawing by February 2005. The US will increasingly have to go it alone in Iraq next year, though the UK and Italy will probably continue to provide about half a division between them. (the US has the equivalent of about 7 divisions in Iraq).
Joe Katzman writes in to say…
I said almost a year ago that our greatest saving grace in this war was our enemies. This is being demonstrated on a smaller scale in Iraq, and on a larger scale by Iran.
The GIs are right in their instinctive grasp that the folks who do such things didn’t exactly wake up one day and snap. The depth of the carefully cultivated, organized hate in the Arab/Islamic world is rarely covered, hence rarely appreciated. But it is the real driver of this war, and always will be until/unless it’s replaced with something else. That “something else” may be systems of government that give them more constructive outlets, or some kind of sea-change within Islam (which Iraqi revulsion at terrorist tacticshelps to spread — that is al-Qaeda’s quagmire fear), or it may be a Germany/Japan kind of experience where suddenly the murderous hate doesn’t seem like such a great idea any more, either via direct example or via a disastrous proxy incident (since America isn’t the only player in this game, don’t assume the sobering megadeath incident must come at America’s hands). If that replacement doesn’t happen, the war continues whether we like it or not — and even whether we acknowledge it or not.
The hardest thing for folks here to grasp about this war is that in a fundamental way, it really isn’t about us or what we think of it.
JSAllison,
The bulk of the young black troops I’ve met in Iraq are with support units, but that’s because there’s a higher percentage of black soldiers in support units than in the infantry and armor, etc. This has been a trend in recent decades … blacks seeking out military careers in support and technical branches versus combat units. There’ve been interesting sociological studies about the phenomenon. It seems a lot of young suburban white boys join combat units looking for adventure. Rural and urban blacks are looking for military jobs where they learn skills that are applicable to later civilian careers.
As a deactivated Vet (65–67) I want our people in Iraq to know my thoughts, and prayers are with you every day. These terrorists are an evil bunch, and you are the people holding them in check May God bless you all.
The courage of our fighting men is unquestionable. And there’s no question that people who blow up civilians are monsters.
But do we really know if our presence in Iraq is decreasing Iraqi terrorism? Or is it inflaming it? This isn’t a question of courage or good intentions. It’s really just about effectiveness.
Six billion borrowed dollars a week poured into the desert sands, so Captain America can pretend to change the political culture of a 4000-year-old land, one dead Arab at a time. Where do we invade next? Instead of thanking the troops so much for fighting Uncurious George’s war, I should be thanking my (as yet unborn) grandchildren for paying for it, with compound interest–not that they’ll have any choice.
Signed: ex 11-B, ex-82nd Airborne, all the way and then some.
“But do we really know if our presence in Iraq is decreasing Iraqi terrorism? Or is it inflaming it? This isn’t a question of courage or good intentions. It’s really just about effectiveness.“
Did our presence in Europe inflame the Nazi SS? Did the passengers on flight 93 inflame the hijackers? Oh, my, we shouldn’t inflame them. Let’s just sit quietly and let them do what they please.
But it’s true, we do have to question the effectiveness of this limited war. When we decided to fight fascism during WWII, we didn’t ally ourselves with the primary source of fascism, Germany. During our ‘war on terrorism’, our government allies itself with the primary source of Islamic fascism, Saudi Arabia.
We were able to install Democracy in Europe after WWII because our enemies’ infrastructure was entirely dismantled. We’re trying to install Democracy in the Middle East while allowing fascism and terrorism to thrive in Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, etc.
Our government consistently avoids any opportunity to confront Islamist fascism, partly because of oil and partly because they find the Islamists a convienient weapon to use against the commies, especially the Chinese. We’re still fighting the dregs of the cold war. As a result, our government, (Republicans/Democrats), has no plans to directly confront these fascists.
As a result, our soldiers are the only people in the world who are currently effectively fighting terrorism. Every terrorist hopes to take as many innocent lives as they possibly can. In a nuclear era, that’s a lot of innocent lives. Dead terrorists are a good thing. Our soldiers need all the support they can get.
‘It boggles my mind, how someone can go into a crowd of kids, and kill them all. Ill never understand it. But thats why Im here, said Staff Sgt. Mark Palmer, with the 717th Ordnance Disposal Company, an Army bomb squad.‘
This guy obviously doesn’t know what levels of “collateral damage” the pentagon finds acceptable. 30 civilians can be projected to be killed per bombing w/o approval from the secretary of defense.
Get us out of Iraq—Now!!!
Congrats to this web site for providing such a worthwhile sounding board from an Army veteran of the 1970’s. I am now going to become an avid visitor, and contributor.
Al-Qaradawi was let into the UK to speak to various audiences this summer. I hope the UK government knows that the implications of his ruling are to urge Iraqis to attack British civilians and troops, as well.
It’s encouraging to see our nation’s soldiers eager to do their duty and defend our country. However, this “forever war” with Iraq and the Islamic world in general has the potential to turn into the next Crusades, which itself lasted hundreds of years. I also wonder how much this war will end up costing? If all they say about the spending is true, this could end up becoming the biggest expense in the history of humanity. It’s sad to see such a waste of good American lives. The Old Men in Washington are destroying entire generations of men and women over this war in the desert. And most of them never even had the stones to fight in wars when they were young.
SAD.
It is obvious (to those of us that pay attention) that the MSM is slanting coverage making Iraq look like a failure. I think the Bush admin. failed to counteract the critics.Humbleness is an attribute but in this case it is a henderance. Most people don’t know that most of Iraq is safe and secure, that it is only the 2 or 3 provences that is under attack.
Nice Haldeman reference with the title. Great book, as relevant today as it was during Vietnam.
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