Duty

I can completely and totally empathize with the soldiers in Iraq that are <a href="http://www.billingsgazette.com//index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/04/15/build/nation/20-duty-extended.inc">getting there duty extended</a>. You look forward to ending your tour and all of a sudden it gets extended and it opens a big void in you. I say all this with understanding since I had similar experiences when I was in the military. These comments have nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree with the war in Iraq. It has to do with the people that are in Iraq doing a job they have been ordered to due. The big problem that comes about by extending these tours is the moral of the people drops dramatically and they really start to wonder if they want to stay in such a "chicken shit" outfit.<br />n<!–more–><br />nAs the article states, our troops are overextended the way it is and if they start losing more troops they will even get into a bigger fix. A lot of people talk about re instituting the draft to help shore up our military due to it being overextended. I think that would be a HUGE mistake since a draftee doesn't want to be there and is only going to create problems for everybody. I will be the first to admit I don't have the solutions to all our problems in the world, but our leaders need to pay more attention to the moral in our troops and what there constant deployment status does to that moral. In the long run it really hurts us.<br />n<br />n<b>The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy. Dwight D. Eisenhower</b>