Army says morale down among troops in Afghanistan

[sfs982000]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_troop...Ec2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDYXJteXNheXNtb3Jh

Wow you don't think that deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan 3-4 times has anything to do with low morale do you? It blows my mind when they post articles like this.

 

[Tez3]

I don't think it's so much the amount of times they have been but more to do with the length of the tours, I was shocked to find your soldiers have horrendously long tours in Afghan and Iraq.

 

[JDenver]

Horrendously long tours, yes. Also doing what no military in human history has ever been capable of doing - NATION BUILDING.

Crazy.

 

[Tez3]

Horrendously long tours, yes. Also doing what no military in human history has ever been capable of doing - NATION BUILDING.

Crazy.

No, none ones troops are 'nation building' in the current theatres of war. If you believe that you are fooling yourself. You need to have a good look at your world history as well as a very close look at what is going on in Afghanistan who have yet again 'elected' a corrupt government.

 

[d1jinx]

Its okay guys.... Obama is sleeping on it over the weekend and will have a new plan on monday for afganistan. Time is not of the essence... He'll get back to us....

 

[Tez3]

Its okay guys.... Obama is sleeping on it over the weekend and will have a new plan on monday for afganistan. Time is not of the essence... He'll get back to us....

Thats okay then because when he decides Brown will follow on and there shouldn't be too many soldiers killed between then and now, well not enough to stop them sleeping at night anyway.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I have a novel idea. Full withdrawal. Build a fence around the country and lock the insanity in.

 

[Tez3]

I have a novel idea. Full withdrawal. Build a fence around the country and lock the insanity in.

Thats an idea that would gain approval here. I don't know if the politicians realise it but the tide is turning here, the recent Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day along with the huge crowd that waited for the bodies of the soldiers killed by the Afghan policeman to be taken from RAF Lyneham to their homes are indications that Britian is waking up to the fact we are fighting a war that we shouldn't be and it's costing us young lives. The sight of a young wounded soldier who has lost all his limbs and half his face being helped to place a wreath on a war memorial has shocked many into a realisation that this war is so wrong in so many ways. It will take a while longer but theres a groundswell, it needs a push and a shove yet but I think the politicians will get a shock. Our elections are next year and I think we may see a bloodier election than we've seen for many years.

 

[Gordon Nore]

The sight of a young wounded soldier who has lost all his limbs and half his face being helped to place a wreath on a war memorial has shocked many into a realisation that this war is so wrong in so many ways.

And still we continue to through these exercises only to come out the other side remembering that we don't like seeing our own kids blown apart. For several months, my son worked in the funeral business and transported the remains of several Canadian soldiers. He's been to crime scenes, pulled bodies out of the Don River, suicides, the works. Nothing comes close to what he's scene of our vets.

I've been a fence sitter on the Afghanistan mission, I must confess. As a multi-national coordinated effort, it did not seem to nag at me the way the Iraq mission has. The more I listen, the more I read, the longer it lasts, the more I'm convinced there's not a happy ending to this.

I was on professional activity today at work -- not teaching, just working around the library, so I had a chance to listen (CBC Radio One) to a first-person report of a young Canadian vet, who had been grappling with PTSD. They spoke at length to his mom too, who worried about his drinking, depression, all the rest. This young man apparently blew the whistle on sexual abuse of children at the hands of the Afghan National Police that he claimed to have witnessed. He also raised some concerns about the ANA. His reports were stonewalled by the military, but the gov't has now begun an inquiry.

I'll look later to see if there is an audio link or perhaps a transcript. It was a compelling, if disturbing, story told in the words of a soldier and his family.

 

[MBuzzy]

Its okay guys.... Obama is sleeping on it over the weekend and will have a new plan on monday for afganistan. Time is not of the essence... He'll get back to us....

Ok, As much as I really hate to....I really have to comment here. If you want someone to blame, what about the administration that got us there and carried on a war with no exit strategy for 8 years. I have no desire to turn this in to a political debate and I fail to understand why issues like this always come back to finger pointing and blame at a single individual. Even before the current administration....do you really think that one individual makes ANY decisions? They are all backed up by many many political advisors as well as the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff. Can we please keep this discussion out of the political arena and focused on the issue at hand? I realize that the problem is the result of political agendas and will be resolved through politics, but simply blaming and placing responsibility on a single person makes no sense.

The issue is that Troops' morale is down - and I would venture to say it isn't just in Afghanistan, it is in Iraq and every theater right now. It is also not limited to the American military. I met plenty of Brits, Australians, Koreans, Italians, etc who wanted to go home just as badly.

Bottom line is that we are over committed. Too many deployments, too long, and too often. The Army in particular (along with any multinational long or medium range logistics supply units) has a tough job, which often involves being outside the wire on a daily basis. It is bad enough keeping that stress level going for a year long deployment - try doing it 4 times in a row. The article sums it up nicely:

Both surveys showed that soldiers on their third or fourth tours of duty had lower morale and more mental health problems than those with fewer deployments. And an increasing number of troops are having problems with their marriages.

It does of course all come down to a political issue, but quite frankly if ANYONE on this board, myself included, thinks that they have the answers and know the facts and has some grandiose plan for solving the problems in our multi-front wars, you are sorely mistaken. In fact, I would venture to say that unless you have sat in on a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Military advisors, Combatant Commander strategy planning, or NATO planning (or international unit equivalent), your sources of intelligence are relatively flawed. As obtrusive as they may be, the media still doesn't know everything and is generally so slanted that you really can't base anything except a one sided political opinion on what they say.

Raise your hand if you have a security clearance....Oh wait, I've got one and it isn't even CLOSE to being high enough to know all of the details and for me to think that I am capable or in a position to plan strategy. I want it to be over just as much as the next guy, but I trust my military and civilian senior leaders. Our leaders know the issues and morale is a major concern. Retention is down, enlistment is down, and morale is down, our leaders know this and are attempting to deal with the problem. It has been a problem for as long as there have been wars, this one is no different.

Ok, I'm off my soapbox - fire away....preferably within the confines of this topic.

 

[sfs982000]

I have a novel idea. Full withdrawal. Build a fence around the country and lock the insanity in.

You know that'll never happen and why you ask, because it makes wayyyy too much sense.

 

[Sigung86]

Get the crooks, politicians and dumb-Asses out of the way and let the military win a war... Then see what happens to morale.

We haven't had an opportunity to win a war since the end of WWII. The Korean War was, nominally, a Police Action. Viet Nam sticks in my craw. They used to pass out targets that couldn't be targets under any circumstance... And those were mainly political in nature. And look what happened to the US financial picture.

Same stuff now... It's a high finance "thing" for the big business folks. It's a political thing for others. And the people that have to pay are the Military Personnel. Soon to be the civilian side. They have found that people, politicians et al. Will simply take what they pass out with no fear of reprisal.

Sometimes, like now, for instance, our government is venal, uber-corrupt, pitifully, stupidly political, with a totally inexperienced President, and it doesn't give a tinker's damn about the troops or their morale, health or welfare.

And from a political point of view, one can't say Right-wing Conservative Republican government is better or worse than the current, Left-wing liberal government. It's simply all a matter of corruptness and crap-assed politicians in conjunction with those wonderful businesses and their owners who profit in war, and an indifferent, cowed, strangely indolent civilian population.