Reply #10: You need to factor in "game face" w/ military interviews [View All]

[Bucky]

The fact is that soldiers, in order to function well in combat, have to be psyched up, body, mind, and spirit, to win. They have to believe in their cause and the righteousness of it to make the possibility of sacrifice worthwhile. Human psychology depends on it. The natural peer pressure for keeping morale up among the other warriors depends on it.

It's not any other job. Motivation and commitment can save you or get you killed in Iraq. I'm not surprised at all that 8 of ten were gung ho. Try and imagine the circumstances the other two soldiers are gonna face when they return to their units and their fellow servicemen hear that they gave interviews saying it's a pointless cause. It's incredibly brave of them--one out of five--to stand up and say "we're risking it all for our country, knowing that in this war our country is wrong." Imagine what that could do to morale--any officer worth his salt would have to step in an stop that kind of talk, just because it's the kind of talk that can sap commitment and get people killed--troops or civilians.

Those two who spoke up, that's a level of commitment few armies in history could sustain--the morality of a captain going down with his ship. They are literally loving the Constitution more than their own lives. We're lucky to have all of them in uniform serving us. Our job now is to serve them by ending the war.