Balt Sun Op/Ed: "U.S. Soldiers Mired Iraq Strive For Survival, Not Heroism"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.livingston26nov26,0,4111939.story?coll=bal-iraq-headlines

U.S. soldiers mired in Iraq strive for survival, not heroism
By Gordon Livingston
Originally published November 26, 2006

Though most commentators have interpreted the 2006 elections results to be a repudiation of our failed policy in Iraq, the administration clings to the fantasy that the war can be "won" in the sense of creating a secure, self-sustaining democracy in that country that will allow us to leave. John McCain thinks more troops are necessary, and according to one report the president is prepared to send in an extra 20,000 soldiers in "a last big push" to achieve such a "victory."
In February 2003, just before the invasion, I wrote a tribute to the astronauts who had recently died when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated. I talked about the limits of technology, the law of unintended consequences and the contrast between the constructive goals the astronauts had sought and the war in Iraq that we were about to launch. I closed the piece as follows: "Those of our sons and daughters who are about to die pursuing a process of unimaginable destruction are equally brave, well-motivated, and infinitely precious. Do we really want to ask this of them?"

We did ask this of them, and for 3 1/2 years we have watched more than 2,800 of them die while 46,000 more have been wounded in pursuit of shifting goals that no longer seem achievable to most Americans.

Our persistence in this bloody quagmire is reminiscent of my generation's experiment in nation building, Vietnam. There are many similarities, but to mention just one: Long after it became evident to most Americans that prospects for victory in Vietnam were nil, we persisted. Of the 58,000 troops killed in the war, 33,000 died after the Tet Offensive in January 1968, which vividly demonstrated that U.S. government predictions about the imminent demise of the Viet Cong had been, shall we say, exaggerated. President Lyndon B. Johnson decided then to withdraw from public life, but the killing and dying went on until we finally left in 1973. Now President Bush visits, exchanges toasts with Vietnamese leaders, and is photographed beneath a bust of Ho Chi Minh.

One lesson we as a nation apparently did learn from our Vietnam debacle was that it was unfair to blame or ignore our soldiers, many of them draftees, who returned home - often with visible or buried scars - to little formal honor or recognition. And so, like good Americans, we have now swung to the other extreme, lionizing our young veterans and reassuring ourselves and them that they have performed a heroic and indispensable service to their country. On Oprah's program a couple weeks ago, New York Times columnist Frank Rich was flogging his latest book about Iraq, The Greatest Story Ever Sold. During audience response time, a young man identified himself as a veteran of Iraq and was immediately given a standing ovation.

- snip -

Maybe we would be better off getting a head start on the Iraq War Memorial, in front of which we can all, civilians and veterans alike, stand and shake our heads.

MORE AT LINK

Gordon Livingston, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran who lives in Columbia, is the author of "And Never Stop Dancing."

[malaise]

1. Sad but beautifully written

and 100% accurate.

[Mountainman]

2. The glory in war is for the home folks. It is they who shout hooray. It is the troops that must

face the test of survival. Like ancient Rome we give the home folks circus and the troops are the gladiators. Hooray for our side! War has always been about survival for the troops and then home to mental illness if not worse.

[SoCalDem]

3. Soldiers clearing IEDs from roads so other soldiers can bring them supplies,

so they can keep clearing the IEDs, so other soldiers can bring them supplies..:eyes:

and one soldier summed it up as:
"driving around waiting to get blown up":cry: