Iraq and Afghanistan

It is not often that I wave the flag for soldiers in Iraq. Many flag wavers seem to have other agendas than simply “supporting our troops”. But as one reads the stream of information that the media pour out every day and takes time to focus on the families who have lost members or have them gravely injured, the predicament of average GIs in Iraq becomes ever more obvious. They have been sent into battle for what appear to be high-minded objectives, the freeing of a people from tyranny and the establishment of democracy. But except for those fortunate enough to find themselves in the more peaceful areas of Iraq, our GIs face a reality that is both more challenging and more discouraging. They find that they can win every battle and yet be surrounded by enemies who wish them dead. They find that their country did not prepare them for the counterguerrilla operations in which they are now involved. They were not given the armament they should have had, and they were not supported by a large enough force to do the job. The army has just now brought out a new manual for fighting guerrilla war to replace one that was forty years old. The Marines have gone into battle with a “small wars” manual published in 1940 that tells them how to manage mules and teaches them that mixed-race societies are "always difficult to govern, if not ungovernable, owing to the absence of a fixed character.'' (This must seem strange to the present generation of American GIs in which many are of “mixed race” even though they have not thought much about such a designation.) They know little of the language or customs of the people they are meant to save. Although they know that the security forces of the new Iraqi government are supposed to be on their side, they are unable to communicate with them, see them in uniforms of all kinds, and often find they are either hostile or unreliable or both. They do not know whom to trust, even people in American uniforms may not be Americans. They do not know where the “front” is, because as soon as they move through an area, insurgents may appear behind them in the areas they have just “cleared”. Alternately brave and fearful, excited and dead tired, idealistic and cynical, many live in a dream-like world in which goals become reduced to making it through until the day they can go home.