Craig
Stern
Troop morale is Achilles heel for
Bush
Do you support the troops? For months, this
phrase was used to silence peaceniks and drum up support for
the war in Iraq. Keep it squarely in mind, for this same
phrase may very well be the battle cry that unseats George
W. Bush in 2004.
In a news story that ran in The Christian
Science Monitor on July 7, an officer from the Army's 3rd
Infantry Division told reporter Ann Scott Tyson that "the
level of morale for most soldiers that I've seen has hit
rock bottom." One soldier wrote a letter to his congressman
insisting that "most soldiers would empty their bank
accounts just for a plane ticket home."
An ABC News report on July 16 ("A Big
Letdown") chronicled anger among the Army's 3rd Infantry
Division, some of whom had been deployed in the Middle East
for more than 10 months straight as of that point. Asked
what they would say to Donald Rumsfeld if he were there with
them, one of the soldiers remarked, "If Donald Rumsfeld was
here, I'd ask him for his resignation."
Fast forward — two more months of
sweltering heat, isolation, constant guerilla attacks, the
gradual unraveling of the administration's justifications
for the war, and one can only begin to imagine how angry our
troops are now.
Thanks to wonders of the Internet, however,
we don't have to. A surprising amount of criticism has
bypassed the Army's censors via the Internet, making its way
back to the United States.
The Independent UK reported earlier this
week ("White House is Ambushed by Criticism From America's
Military Community," Sept. 20, 2003) that "the dissenters —
many of whom have risked deep disapproval from the military
establishment to voice their opinions — have set up Web
sites with names such as Bring Them Home Now. They have
cried foul at administration plans to cut veterans' benefits
and scale back combat pay for troops still in Iraq."
Yes, that's right. Adding insult to injury,
the Pentagon issued an interim budget report in July
recommending a dramatic 47 percent drop in combat pay and
family separation allowances for our soldiers.
Combat pay is to be cut from $225 a month
to $150 a month, and family separation allowances (which
support soldiers' families back home) are to be cut from an
already inadequate $250 a month to a truly pathetic $100 a
month.
To place these cuts in perspective, I now
receive, working part time as a student library assistant,
roughly the same pay as the soldiers risking their lives in
Afghanistan and Iraq. The Independent reports that angry
soldiers and their families "have given politically
embarrassing prominence to such issues as the inefficiency
of civilian contractors hired to provide shelter, water and
food — many of them contributors to the Bush campaign
coffers — and a mystery outbreak of respiratory illnesses
that many soldiers, despite official denials, believe is
related to the use of depleted uranium munitions." Under
such conditions as these, it shouldn't be surprising that
many soldiers have begun to lose faith in the military
entirely.
The dates when our troops were to be
allowed home have been pushed back so many times that many
soldiers simply don't trust the people in charge anymore.
Speaking to a reporter for ABC News, Pfc. Jayson Punyhotra
said, "Well it pretty much makes me lose faith in the Army.
I mean, I don't really believe anything they tell me. If
they told me we were leaving next week, I wouldn't believe
them."
Tim Predmore, a soldier on active duty with
the 101st Airborne Division near Mosul, Iraq, recently went
so far as to write a scathing editorial for the Peoria
Journal Star expressing his heartfelt disillusionment with
the government.
"I once believed that I served for a cause:
'to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United
States,'" Predmore wrote. "I can no longer justify my
service for what I believe to be half-truths and bold lies.
My time is done as well as that of many others with whom I
serve. We have all faced death here without reason or
justification."
From continually breaking promises to
switch out war-weary troops with fresh ones, to responding
to soldiers' deaths in Iraq by remarking "bring 'em on," to
presiding over drastic cuts in pay and veterans' benefits,
Bush has proved remarkably unsympathetic to the needs of
American troops.
Army mother Susan Schuman, speaking to the
San Francisco Chronicle, felt that "it's all part of the lie
of the Bush administration, that they say they support our
troops." However, perhaps the real question has become, are
the troops going to support Bush come 2004?
u
Editorial columnist Craig Stern is a senior majoring in
creative writing. To comment on this article, call (213)
740-5665 or e-mail dtrojan@usc.edu.
Copyright 2003 by the Daily Trojan.
All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol.
150, No. 22 (Thursday, September 25, 2003), on page
4.
