I am still one of the few people out there who does not think that everything in Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket, even when I read reports like this:
To Staff Sgt. Charles Pollard, the working-class suburb of Mashtal is a “very, very, very, very bad neighborhood.” And he sees just one solution.
“U.S. officials need to get our [expletive] out of here,” said the 43-year-old reservist from Pittsburgh, who arrived in Iraq with the 307th Military Police Company on May 24. “I say that seriously. We have no business being here. We will not change the culture they have in Iraq, in Baghdad. Baghdad is so corrupted. All we are here is potential people to be killed and sitting ducks.”
One thing anyone who has had more than just a brief experience with the military understands is that the best way to see that your soldiers are alright is to see if they are bitching. When they stop complaining, then you have trouble. At any rate, I read these reports, and I find them appalling- I would never, never, not in a million years, have bitched to reporters when I was on active duty. Yeah, there were a lot of times when things REALLY sucked, and I really was in a lousy mood, but I just would never have bitched to anyone outside my unit. I guess times have changed- and we have to keep in mind that in many cases, these are Reservists and Guardsmen, and many of them do have a right to feel as if they have been sold a bill of goods.