The real impact of the extension of combat tours:
Word of the extension arrived almost by accident here at the rambling villa in the countryside east of Ramadi that the men from Company B, First Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment of the First Infantry Division, have turned into an American-Iraqi military base.
Shortly after midnight, First Sgt. Jody Heikkinen spotted an article about it on the Internet, and the company officers were caught off guard. “We’re trying to figure out what it means,” said Capt. Chris Calihan, 31, the company commander.
The soldiers had been scheduled to return home in June, but the announcement appeared to extend their stay until September.
Among those soldiers who were still awake, there were muffled outbursts of anger and frustration laced with dark humor.
“If I get malaria, I get to leave, right?” Specialist Rodney Lawson, 30, said to no one in particular.
The soldiers wondered if their relationships back home could weather an extension and predicted that divorce rates in the military would spike. They muttered about three additional months of forced celibacy and fretted half jokingly about impatient wives and girlfriends. “Now a lot of cheating be going on,” said Sgt. Jonathan Wilson, 29. “I’m serious.”
Specialist Lawson had planned to take a vacation with his former wife, with whom he has two daughters, after he got back to the division’s home base in Schweinfurt, Germany. They were going to give the relationship another try.
“This has totally wrecked everything I had planned,” he said as he slumped on an empty explosives crate.
“Now I’m never going to get together with my ex-wife,” he said. “I’m scared that the longer it takes, more things could happen.”
The soldiers also worried about the extra months of dodging snipers’ bullets and roadside bombs.
“You only going to get so many chances,” said Specialist Lawson, whose Bradley fighting vehicle has been hit three times by rocket-propelled grenades during this rotation.
By midmorning, as the soldiers mobilized for another day of missions, the harsher emotions gave way to resignation and stoicism.
Help is on the way, fellows.
David
Wow, I’d forgotten about that particular catchphrase. Ugh.
Zifnab
Wow. I think Geoge Bush is doing in 4 years what no Democrat would have dreamed of doing in 40. He’s going to turn the entire US Military into Democrats.
True Blue Merican
I lost my peace of mind when I read this post. Who sez we’re all not sacrificing something for this noble cause? Even Fearless Leader has sacrificed a couple of brown hairs for Grey.
Jake
If he doesn’t turn them into corpses first.
I was going include some “Why don’t we ever hear about…?” snark but I can’t. I just can’t.
Cromagnon
Jody’s got your girl and gone…
But don’t worry fellas, Decider knows best so suck it up and drive on. His legacy is at stake afterall (and thats all that really matters)
Lee
You need to put a /snark or /sarcasm tag around that last line.
I came into comments with my flamethrower fully charged and ready to fire.
I read the first comment and realized the sarcasm.
Jake
Who needs snark with crap like this:
I must ask: Is there some “Don’t worry be happy” rule in the military? I’m trying to figure out if something prevents a sergeant from saying: Look, this sucks. I know it sucks, you know it sucks, the cockroaches in the walls know it sucks. I’m not going to try to put a happy face on this because it just plain sucks.
Would he get in trouble? And I ask in semi-seriousness because breaking out what sounds like a quote from a recruiting ad at a time like this seems a bit fucked.
The Other Steve
They volunteered, and they know what they were getting into.
chopper
another corner turned.
The Other Steve
Here is a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don’t worry be happy
In every life we have some trouble
When you worry you make it double
Don’t worry, be happy……
Ain’t got no place to lay your head
Somebody came and took your bed
Don’t worry, be happy
The land lord say your rent is late
He may have to litigate
Don’t worry, be happy
Lood at me I am happy
Don’t worry, be happy
Here I give you my phone number
When you worry call me
I make you happy
Don’t worry, be happy
Ain’t got no cash, ain’t got no style
Ain’t got not girl to make you smile
But don’t worry be happy
Cause when you worry
Your face will frown
And that will bring everybody down
So don’t worry, be happy (now)…..
There is this little song I wrote
I hope you learn it note for note
Like good little children
Don’t worry, be happy
Listen to what I say
In your life expect some trouble
But when you worry
You make it double
Don’t worry, be happy……
Don’t worry don’t do it, be happy
Put a smile on your face
Don’t bring everybody down like this
Don’t worry, it will soon past
Whatever it is
Don’t worry, be happy
Lee
No “Don’t worry be happy” rule. It is gallows humor, or dark humor.
Think of it this way. You’re fucked, you’re best friends are fucked and everyone you know and love is fucked.
And you cannot do a thing about it.
You can whine and complain, but that does no good. It just makes everyone around you miserable.
Or you can joke about it.
The Other Steve
At this point I’m sure they are screaming “STOP HELPING US! WE DO NOT WANT ANY MORE HELP!”
The Other Steve
That’s why I love Private Industry!
I’m submitting my resignation on monday. seriously
Jake
I’m all about the graveyard humour, I expect graveyard humour. “Hey more money,” sounds a lot like “It’ll be over by Christmas.”
Oh well, I’m sure the really good quotes wouldn’t make it past the editor.
Cromagnon
Nope… but you can whine and complain or just drive on. In my day we would have just said ‘Fuck it. Ain’t nothing but a thing’… Its about all you can do
Rusty Shackleford
“Shanna, they bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let ’em crash.”
grumpy realist
God yes, gallows humor. You want to scream and howl, and you know if you get started you’ll never stop. So black humor is the day, a way dealing with the pain and the stupidity of all of it….
And I wish that every single dimwit who sincerely says about this extention “but they volunteered!” be magically swapped into the exact same combat books these soldiers are in. Volunteered, yes. Volunteered to die, no.
Heck, even the gladiators in ancient Rome were provided up front with more knowledge of what they were getting into.
Face
That Presidential veto only days away. That’ll save the troops. Vetoing both their money and a date to get out. Troops salivatin’ over that move.
BFR
Got a question – if this is so bad, why aren’t more soldiers suddenly realizing their latent homosexuality? If half these guys walked up to their COs and told them they were gay, that would put the military in an awful bind, wouldn’t it?
Richard Bottoms
I ask two questions:
1. Did you vote for George W. Bush?
2. Are you a Democrat?
If it’s yes to the first, well then suck it up fool because after four years of fag bashing, environment ripping, war ineptitude, and fiscal insanity anyone dumb enough to vote for this crowd in 2004 desreves every stupid policy decision that comes out this administration’s scphincter.
GW says the surge will work, you voted for him. Don’t you trust him anymore??
As for the second, who the hell do you think is trying to stop this war?
Cromagnon
Honor and integrety… Living up to ones obligations and oaths… That sort of thing
Dreggas
Amen.
Dreggas
See that’s where the whole thing comes in that you can’t just wake up one day and say “Hey I am Gay!” It doesn’t work so well, of course it reminds me of the scene in “In the Army Now” where pauly shore and co. try to say they are gay and the guy says “Ok kiss”.
AkaDad
I pretty sure this isn’t what the Army meant by “Be all you can be”.
BFR
Honor and integrety… Living up to ones obligations and oaths… That sort of thing
I’d bet that most of the soldiers agree with your statement but there’s got to be a bunch of them who have had enough – guys who have family issues of one form or another back home for one.
Tom Hilton
One of Joe Klein’s commenters over at Swampland (via Atrios) has suggested that this is why they’re so pissed about the leak: the plan was to announce it after the veto and blame it on the Democrats. Sounds entirely plausible to me.
yet another jeff
Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.
scarshapedstar
Actually, I think the latter is what Karl Rove is banking on. Mission Accomplished!
Richard Bottoms
FUBAR
Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition
demimondian
I always wondered why GWB was such a failure as a military officer. I should have remembered that he doesn’t understand those things.
Richard Bottoms
With that in mind, Robert Gates’ comment about someone taking it upon themselves to prevent commanders from notifying the troops about the extension prior to making it known to the press makes a different kind of sense.
The plan was to wait for the presidential veto, the extension notice starts to be briefed to the troops and then blammo GW blames the Democrats for the unfortunate consequence of longer tours.
Whoa.
Good thing I wasn’t dumb enough to vote for this bastard.
How about the rest of you.
Heh.
annie's granny
That’s why they keep changing their slogans. “Be all you can be” didn’t accurately reflect the situation any more, and the rising mortality rates combined with the falling recruitment rates made “Army of One” too darkly ironic. Which leaves us with “
Hulk Angry!Hulk Smash!Army Strong.”Dug Jay
There’s absolutely nothing new or particularly surprising in the reactions of these soldiers. I remember my Uncle still bitching nearly 50 years after the fact about how his required bomber runs over Germany in WWII kept getting lengthened, from 20, then to 25 and on up to 30, etc. Same thing happened to some of us during the Vietnam era. Nobody likes it, least of all the ones who have to suck it up and move on.
Tom Hilton
And least of all the ones who get screwed for purely political (as opposed to legitimately military) reasons.
Jake
And if two people, just two people walked in, sang a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walked out…
Yeah, that was then. And as much as it appeals to my subversive side, wouldn’t the soldier face a discharge, loss of benefits, etc? I suspect these days the response would be: “That’s nice, back to your post.” I need to check but I wouldn’t be surprised to find there’s been a marked dip in DADT discharges of late and it now takes more than an anonymous note to trigger one. Or at least trigger one right away.
Welcome back to the States soldier! Now GTFO!
Tulkinghorn
Risking death for your country is one thing – it is a virtue. Risking death so that the President does not have to admit he does not have a policy is obscene.
War Czar, anyone?
BFR
I need to check but I wouldn’t be surprised to find there’s been a marked dip in DADT discharges of late and it now takes more than an anonymous note to trigger one. Or at least trigger one right away.
I think I read somewhere else that there has been a drop in discharges as is typically the case during wartime. However, I don’t know if there is a true historical parallel, since this is the first time I’m aware of that there has appeared to be a serious morale problem in an all-volunteer military. Since there is no prospect of a draft to relieve the current crop of soldiers, how likely is it that they will start resorting to more desperate measures?
Lee
I have known people to do this. People know who is gay and who is not (at least when I was in the Marines).
When a straight Marine did this the response was between “Get the fuck out of my office” to “Prove it”.
Perry Como
President Bush would never do something that political.
Jonathan
It’s not FUBAR.
It’s BOHICA, Bend Over Here It Comes Again.
And “Groundhog Day”.
http://www.intel-dump.com/posts/1170453946.shtml
Richard Bottoms
I haven’t heard that since 1980. I was the PFC in charge of replacing the broke dick that was part of our award.
Heading down to the local sex shop to get an appropriately sized dildo was an experience.
Richard Bottoms
I have general sympathy for anyone caught in this war zone.
But I zero political sympathy if you were stupid enough to vote for George Bush. Tough shit, suck it up.
jg
C’mon. Be reasonable. Purple heart band-aids are a powerful tool. And you can’t blame people for not wantig to be lead by the guy who invented the internet, can you? These are important issues. He voted for it before he voted against it. Can’t have that. Seriously after all that how could you not vote for the draft dodger who has never accomplished anything at all in his lfe? It ain’t like the media would let real issues make the airwaves anyway so why pretend there is any valid reasons to oppose Bush?
Perry Como
He’s an MBA that promised to run the government just like one of his businesses. Mission accomplished.
Dreggas
I think the worst part of this for most of these guys is the fact that they were willing, when they joined (and this was my experience) to fight/die for something they believed in, now the “belief” is dead. It’s been shot to pieces and unless they haven’t come home for even a minute they know that there was no real “cause” to die for, that is morale crushing.
The only way to survive is to just let everything become routine and become a freaking zombie because short of going completely apeshit there isn’t much that can be done. They suck it up and keep going but they’re hollow inside.
It’s just unbelievable what this POS has done to the military. It’s just unreal.
John Cole
I didn’t think he was going to use Enron as his corporate model.
yet another jeff
Not Enron — Arbusto.
Rome Again
The name was all wrong to begin with. Come to think of it, the last six years have left me completely bushed.
Richard Bottoms
Sympathy meter: 0.001
Dave in ME
Bush is doing everything he can to avoid any talk of a draft. If that means destroying the folks already in the service then so be it. It is telling he is looking for a war czar. He obviously wants to have someone in place to take the blame for the hard decisions to come.
If you are in the military and you voted for this monkey, how pissed are you about now?
Jake
America has been ambushed.
Rome Again
::smacks head:: “Wow, I could have had a V-8.”
Why the hell didn’t I think of that?
demimondian
For heaven’s sake, John — did you look at how he ran *each* of his businesses? He has, in fact, run the Executive Branch exactly as he ran them: dishonestly, mendaciously, and in constant hope of a bail-out by on of his father’s friends.
grumpy realist
John, I know we’re not all that political here, but based on your experience in the military, isn’t there anything we can do? More letters to our congresscritters? I donate as much as I can to veterans’ groups. I’m one of those that doesn’t like the military mindset that much but what we’ve been seeing lately is, well, just OBSCENE. It’s a total betrayal of people who have willingly signed up and are now just being used as cannon fodder because our idiot politicians don’t have the guts to admit they stuck their dicks in a hornets nest.
Wherever she is, Barbara Tuchman is busily penning another chapter to her book “The March of Folly”.
Richard Bottoms
Yes. Convince enough Republicans to give Democrats a veto proof majority on the spending bill.
Only they can make this stop. The majority of our guys are for getting out, the majority of their guys aren’t.
Pretty clear cut.
Which are more you afraid of, a smashed military. Or Michael Moore being able to say I told you so?
And yes, I will take a moment to honor the fallen and injured once it’s all over.
Then I will gloat like the dickens because we were right, absolutely, completely and without question.
If you cast your vote for this fag bashing, wild spending, greedy, Katrina bungling, inept crowd then fuck you. I am quite pleased to see you in mental agony.
BTW, this email think is shaping up to be a Watergate sized firestorm that will send more of the Republicans to fucking jail and perhaps smash the GOP to bits.
Heh. Pass the popcorn and salt.
Jake
S’allright, you can’t think clearly if you’re constantly bushwhacked.
[Dodges rotten fruit]
Perry Como
To be fair, this time when his father’s friends tried to bail him out he blew them off.
numbskull
The “war czar” talk reminds me: Didn’t Drinky McStagger at one point put his girl friend Condie in charge of Iraq? Whatever happened with that?
Perry Como
Ferragamo came out with their spring line.
Richard Bottoms
Rwwr. Hiss.
BadTux
Regarding the homosexuality thing, yeah, I suspect “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t see, don’t hear” is well in effect down at the pointy end of the stick. Unless you strip off all your clothes and start trying to cornhole General Petraeus during a troop review, I doubt you’re going anywhere no matter how gay you are, at least while you’re in Iraq. You can be as swishy and color-coordinated and stylishy coifed as possible and all that’ll happen is “Quit wastin’ my time and get ready for patrol.”
Richard Bottoms
It just occured to me how funny it was to be called insensitve to the plight of the American soldier.
Funny because I strongly advocated leaving anyone who voted for the current president to the mercy of… George Bush, their commander in chief.
searp
The soldiers knew this was coming; they knew it on Taji in February.
It totally sucks, and I am positive morale took a big hit, but it was less of a surprise to the soldiers than you would think.
I think the biggest problem is that this doesn’t fix the long term problem. Soldiers KNOW they will be deployed forever if this President has his way. What looks like a career booster the first time stops looking like any type of career the third time. It starts looking like something that is bound to result in a short, unhappy life.
Retention issues will grow rapidly.
JessWonderin
Capt Codpiece has done it AGAIN! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!! This AWOL wessle has done the impossiable . . . in one day he was busier than the only whore during Fleet Week – screwed’m all . . .
mrmobi
My schadenfreude is tempered by the knowledge that, despite knowledge of Mr. McFlightsuit’s dreadful inadequacies, I chose to be among those Democrats who supported the Iraq War.
While I didn’t vote for the draft-dodging sociopath, apparently, I just didn’t have the time to educate myself fully about the facts of the run-up to the war. Shame on me, and shame on the media, for not fucking doing their job.
I’ve since come to the conclusion that, especially since the advent of the Internet, there really isn’t any excuse for accepting the word of our elected representatives and other political appointees. We should always be looking for second opinions, and third opinions, in cases of war. I hope that, in the future, anyone who says something like, “you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” will be driven from public life.
At this point, I find myself with what is being called the “extremist” wing of my party in hoping that the Congress will simply pull the plug and not fund the war anymore. Honest conservatives like Bill Odoms and Bill Buckley think we’ve already lost. But Cheney said today that there is still hope, and that he and President are not isolated.
I’m hoping Democrats don’t fold on war funding, but given the fact that people who have spent millions getting elected are likely to want to keep those jobs, I think there’s a good chance Bush will get his money, no strings attached.