Longview soldier sees morale slipping in war zone (our generation's 'Nam)

[Barrett808]

The desert heat is easing a bit in Kuwait and Iraq.

"It was 135 (degrees) back in July and August. Now it's 110 to 115," reports Spc. Jonathan Guzman, a National Guard reservist from Longview.

Morale of U.S. troops, though, is falling much faster than the temperature, he says.

Increasing violence and abuse directed at American soldiers, and the lack of any clear-cut end to the war or tours of duty, is sapping enthusiasm for the fight, Guzman said in a phone call earlier this week to The Daily News from his base in Kuwait .

"I honestly believe this is going to be the Vietnam of our generation," he said. "Everybody (in the battalion) thinks that. A lot of things happen that never make the news. There are firefights all the time. Shootings. I've seen soldiers (step off the road) to (urinate) and step on a land mine."

(more)

http://www.tdn.com/articles/2003/10/02/area_news/news01.txt

[Aristus]

1. The ME is no picnic in the winter, either.

Sometime in January, the rains will come, turning everything into a mud bath. And the desert temperatures at night will plunge to around 30 degrees or so. I was in the Gulf during the winter, and it was difficult to say the least.

Bring them home...........................NOW!

Not one more life!

[saigon68]

10. ITS IRAQ-NAM kiddos

Yes indeedy.

The Chicken Hawks and AWOL bastards of my generation have foisted a corporate quest for profits on you.

It will however be much worse (than Nam I) because they control the media. No press coverage of your wounds and pain will be permitted. Your suffering and dying for Halliburton's(2 LL'S)bottom line will not be known by an uncaring public sedated on sports. When you are wounded no one but your immediate family will know.

You will receive the same underfunded VA care your fathers received. You are a beast of burden and they will ride you until you die.

[Section_43]

2. Jesus

"I honestly believe this is going to be the Vietnam of our generation," he said. "Everybody (in the battalion) thinks that. A lot of things happen that never make the news. There are firefights all the time. Shootings. I've seen soldiers (step off the road) to (urinate) and step on a land mine."


You know it has to be much worse than even this statement.

[Emillereid]

3. Whe will we ever learn -- when will we ever learn?

King gave a speech entitled when will we ever learn that the following article talks about -- does anybody know where I can find the entire speech?

When Will We Ever Learn?
Dr. King’s Forgotten Speech on Peace




by Paul Rockwell
Oakland, California




<snip>






As Dr. King analyzed the hope-wrecking nature of war, I put down my pen, stopped taking notes, and listened with my heart, as he described, not only the devastation abroad, the injuries and scarred lives of the working class youth returning home, but the spiritual costs of imperialism -- the mendacity of our leaders, the disillusionment of youth. “ A nation,” he said, “ that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”



King reminded his listeners that U.S. lawlessness abroad breeds violence within the United States as well. “As I have walked among the desperate, rejected angry men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? Wasn’t our own nation using massive doses of violence to solve its problems? Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly against the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.” King never used the term “blowback,” but his message was clear: When America sows the wind, it will reap the whirlwind in due time.


<snip>

The recent $396 billion military appropriation is a mockery of economic justice. While our cities are in decay, Americans pay more for defense than all potential adversaries and neutral parties combined. The recent $45 billion increase -- a mere add-on -- is more than three times the defense budgets of Iran, Iraq, Libya, North, Korea, Sudan and Syria combined.



As U.S. corporations continue to globalize weaponry and violence for profit, the U.S. has become the primary font of arms proliferation in the world. Subsidized by American taxpayers, U.S. corporations -- Lockheed-Martin, General Electric, General Dynamics, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, Hughes Aircraft, to name a few -- sell lethal weapons to more than 40 countries. Assault helicopters, tanks, 50-caliber machine guns, hellfire anti-armor missiles, land-mine dispensing pods, Stinger missiles, fighter jets, rifles, guns -- mechanized violence has become the main currency of American foreign policy. There is hardly a major battlefield where U. S. arms are not involved, and U.S. industries produce arms for both sides in many conflicts: Britain and Argentina in the Falklands, Ethiopia and Somalia in the Horn of Africa. According to USA TODAY, U.S. companies, along with France, helped Iraq build his its arsenal of poison gas and chemical weapons. How easy we forget that President Reagan sold arms to Khomeini, after which President Bush (senior) promoted and backed Saddam Hussein’s 7-year war against Iran....

[w4rma]

8. When the economic interests no longer have so much power (n/t)

[JoFerret]

9. A time to break silence

I think it was called "Beyond vietnam: A time to break silence"Here is a link: http://icujp.org/king.htmla

[alfredo]

11. fixed link

http://icujp.org/king.html an errant 'a' made its way into your url. So it goes.

Thanks for the link.

[Cha]

4. So very Tragic and Avoidable! I wonder what the People who

were for this Bomb Dropping Invasion are thinking NOw? Now that's it's too late?

I'll tell you what I'm thinking as a person who had "Attack Iraq, No!" as a bumpersticker and Protested on Feb.15, 2003 in NYC...

We predicted all this would happen and begged the Senators and Congress not give bush the authority..

There was no talking to bush ..he had his filthy mind made up..But the Democrats could have made a stand when it Counted!
:kick:

edit~typo

[tom_paine]

5. Sad. Those brave troops are the victims here (among the many victims)

And when, God Help Us, we really need them, they won't be available because they are all now button-men in the Bushevik Imperial Army.

[dArKeR]

6. I don't believe there ever was any enthusiansm except in the Bush Adm.

and in the American Corporations. The soldiers are in the military as a career job and want nothing to do with fighting or dying. The American people must be really nuts to believe the shat they hear Wolfowitz, Junior and Rumsfeld vomiting about 'these boys are patriots dying for a good cause.' If Junior was a patriot he would have accept Saddam's challenge to a duel which would have solved this with the death of only 1 man who was willing to die for his country. Why should Junior expect the children to die for America but he's not willing to? But then the GOP morals are, 'let the others die for America, not me.'

[revcarol]

7. Oh, man. I hope he doesn't get court-martialed!!

That's what they threatened the troops with the last time some spoke out.

But, thank you, brave man.

[cliss]

12. Just 35 years since VietNam

Just barely one generation. Is that all it took to forget all the heartache, sorrow and misery. We lost that war. Had to go home in defeat. We first learned of the term 'post traumatic stress syndrome'.

I did read recently that some soldiers hate it so much that they try to figure out ways to get wounded, so they can be sent home. Can you visualize this scenario: Brad asks Steve to back up a bit, while no one's looking. He asks Steve to shoot him in the leg, below the knee. Not down the center, but just graze his leg. "friendly fire". He wants to go home.

[Barrett808]

14. One story two days ago had the female soldiers getting pregnant

Bogged down in Baghdad
By Scott Taylor, In Iraq

"This is completely unprecedented," said Staff Sgt. Allan Spry, a 17-year veteran with the 173rd Brigade.

"How long can they expect our guys to go without sex and alcohol?"

Although the U.S. soldiers in Iraq are under strict orders to remain "dry," one indicator of a breakdown in unit discipline is the presence of Iraqi alcohol vendors outside most of the American camps.

Sexual fraternization is also forbidden, but the staggering number of pregnancies among U.S. female personnel has only exacerbated the Americans' manpower shortage.

"The know that getting knocked up is a ticket out of this s--thole," claimed Cpl. Slaughter.

"We started out with 10 women (at the U.S. compound in Taji) and already three of them have gone home pregnant. Everyone knows that the lieutenant is pregnant but she just hasn't told the commanding officer yet. So, that's 40% of our women knocked up in less than five months."

(more)

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2003/09/28/211300.html

[goforit]

13. Well....Duh !!!...After hearing that they are fighting for a treasonous

President and his staff.........I would loose enthusiasm as well!!!