I wanna go home

by David Grand
July 24, 2003

Nothing-other than perhaps "a Dear John letter"- is more demoralizing to a soldier than learning their tour of duty is being extended and he won't be going home to his loved ones for however long. For while homesickness is not considered a medical aliment, it can wear him to a frazzle and make him as nervous as a coyote in a pen. And heaven knows, our soldiers' nerves in Iraq were already frayed, in knowing that at any moment their lives may be snuffed out by a sniper's bullet or rocket grenade

So it came as no surprise to me to read that their morale was lower than whale dung, after being told by Gen. John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, that some of them should expect deployments well beyond the usual six months of peacekeeping duty of the Army missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan.

The big difference, of course, between Iraq and those trouble spots, simmering on the back-burners, is that our troops there are facing a daily struggle in combating a well-coordinated guerrilla campaign, with fatalities mounting at almost the same daily pace as the number of killings in Baltimore City. As one soldier put it, "I'm tired of going to bed wondering if I'm going to wake up in the morning."

An article in Newsweek sums it up best: "By and large, when the soldiers of Operation Iraq Freedom complain, it's not about the scorpions and tarantulas they must shake out of their boots in the morning; not about the 110 degree heat that requires extra changes of T shirts so their sweat doesn't poach their skin; and not about purified water that tastes like boiled Windex. It's about the new challenge of their mission for which they were ill-prepared, like not knowing how to contend with a 12-year-old girl with a rifle; how to check whether a soft-drink stand has been booby-trapped; and how to win the hearts and minds of a population that seems riddled with people bent on killing them, with bystanders clapping when soldiers are killed."

And no doubt their learning of the raging debate back home over the justification for the war, and of the alleged exaggerated or distorted intelligence reports, only added to their discontent. It also must've contributed to their worst fears that they may be bogged-down in a quagmire, a la Vietnam, and questioning what the endgame will be.

However, despite all the uncertainty as to when they'll be able to return home, they still have a lot less to gripe about than those who served in the two world wars. For they knew they weren't going home until the last gun was fired, or in a coffin or on a hospital ship. But then again, they wouldn't be soldiers if they weren't griping.

How long will the U.S. have to retain troops in Iraq? The answer to that $64,000 question depends on whose estimate you're willing to accept. I've heard of estimates ranging from 2 to 10 years, with President Bush hedging his bet by simply saying "for as long as it takes." And the American administrator of Iraq L. Paul Bremer's estimate is just as open-ended, saying our troops would remain there until Iraqis agree on a new constitution and set up a democratic government.

Well, that day might be a long time in coming, what with the Arab Shiites (who have no love for America for not coming to their aid when they were being slaughtered by Saddam after the Gulf War) having the vast majority of members on Iraq's Governing Council. And hardly a day goes by that thousands of Shiites aren't protesting our presence in the streets of Baghdad.

As a parting suggestion, if the president would like to give our soldiers in Iraq a real morale booster, he might consider diverting a portion of that $4 billion that's being spent every month we're there to fattening their paychecks. I'm sure he'd agree it just ain't right that many of their families back home are living barely above the poverty level and relying on food stamps to get by. It's the least we can do to thank them for laying their lives on the line.