Support the troops?

There is this concept I can't get my head around. I have heard several different times and from different people this idea that doesn't make sense to me. It's that if you truly support the troops, you should want them to come home from Iraq as soon as possible. I suppose that if you are among the growing group of people who believe the Iraq war should never have been started, you might believe that this is "support." But I don't think it is.

For one thing, when the war started, the majority of people here were in support. You can say, as some Senators have, that you have changed your mind now for whatever reason. If you are one of these people, you should know that your lack of resolve is not support, as pulling out of Iraq without leaving a stable situation will be a victory for the groups who desire to harm us. These groups will surely continue to attack us anywhere they can, with attacks in the U.S. being a high priority. So at best, the early pullout of troops would be a pause in the war, maybe a short one and maybe a long one; but only a pause.

The war would continue, but the attacks would happen at random, with high civilian casualties being a goal of the terrorists. Which brings me to my second point. The U.S. Army exist to protect American citizens and defend the United States. We have made it our business, since World War II at least, to extend this protection to the rest of the world. Whether this is a good idea or not is another debate, and whether we have been mostly successful or not is as well. I would argue that the U.S. has brought peace and respect for human rights to more people in the world than any other entity in the history of civilization. Maybe I'll blog that one day. Not now.

My point is that we Soldiers, mostly, believe that we are defending the U.S. in Iraq. I feel pretty confident in saying that although I haven't spoken to all the Soldiers in the Army. The war has been going on since 2003, Afghanistan the year before and 9/11 was in 2001. The normal active Army enlistment is 4 years, some more, some less. The normal Army Reserve enlistment is 6 years. This means that the vast majority of Soldiers in the Army have either joined since the war began, or have reenlisted during the war.

Anti-war groups (like the New York Times), and the media play up "stop loss" as a "back-door draft" that forces poor, unsuspecting troops to stay in the service long after they should have been set free from their bondage. Stop loss is used to keep units together from the time they recieve their deployment order until they come back from the deployment. Yes, some Soldiers are kept past their date of separation, but they are allowed to leave as soon as the unit gets back. This was true during the Gulf War and it makes sense. This may have caught some young Soldiers off guard at the beginning of the war, but everyone else knew about it and accepted it as part of being a Soldier. At this point, no one is being kept in the Military against their will past their normal date of separation, unless they are currently on a deployment order. If they choose to get out after the deployment, they will be allowed to do so. Anyone who says different is either ignorant of the regulations or is lying.

Much has been made of the Army Reserve forcing recently separated Soldiers to return to service, but this is overblown. Soldiers incur an 8 year obligation when they join. If they do 4 years on active duty or 6 years in the Reserve, they can opt to serve the balance in the Inactive Ready Reserve. Meaning, for most, that they do nothing and never hear from the Army again. During a time of war (which, in case you missed it, is now) the Army can call on the Soldier again, especially if the Soldier has a special or critically short skill. This happens, but much less often than I have heard reported in the media. Based on media reports, I would expect that half my platoon would be IRR Soldiers forced back to service. Not the case, I'm afraid.

This is a long way of saying that none of us are here against our will. We choose to serve our country. We don't serve our President, we don't serve to fight in a particular war that we happen to believe in. We believe our country is worth defending and we want to be a part of the team. I don't understand why that's so hard for people to grasp. Some of the comments I've read in other blogs online are sad. They come right out and say that anyone who joins the military is 'stupid and deserves what they get' to paraphrase. If you don't want to serve, don't. But why criticize those who choose to serve? Unless maybe you're feeling guilty about your choice?

Fortunately most Americans are great supporters of their military. And for the record, I don't think anyone should feel guilty about not serving. If it doesn't feel right, don't do it. The Army is stronger for being made up of men and women who are there because they feel that it is right for them. Be an entrepreneur, start a business that will help keep America's economy strong, that's important too. (And give a military discount!)

Back to my point. What was it again? Oh, yeah, support the troops by pulling them out of harms way. The reason this is not supporting the troops is because going into harms way IS OUR JOB! We go fight the bad guys so you don't have to. This sounds the same to me as saying: "We should stop sending police officers in to high crime areas because they might get hurt." That's what cops DO! They understand and accept the risk involved in their jobs, same with firefighters.

Leaving Iraq will cause the terrorists to believe that they have won, and that they can get away with attacking America, because we don't have the resolve to fight back. This will result in more attacks against American civilians. This is an unacceptable outcome.

So to recap: We didn't start the war, we were attacked. We decided to fight the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the time, a majority of the American people and our Representatives and Senators were in support of the decision. It's a knife in the back of all of the men and women in the military to start us on this mission and to want to quit now.

That's not support, that's treachery.