[Peace-discuss] Our soldiers in Iraq aren't heroes

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The penultimate paragraph is dangerous nonsense, but the statement as a
whole is better than anything I've seen in the for-profit media about the
people who are committing crimes in our name in Iraq.  --CGE]

	Our soldiers in Iraq aren't heroes
	4/12/2004
	By ANDY ROONEY

Most of the reporting from Iraq is about death and destruction. We don't
learn much about what our soldiers in Iraq are thinking or doing. There's
no Ernie Pyle to tell us, and, if there were, the military would make it
difficult or impossible for him to let us know.

It would be interesting to have a reporter ask a group of our soldiers in
Iraq to answer five questions and see the results:

1. Do you think your country did the right thing sending you into Iraq?

2. Are you doing what America set out to do to make Iraq a democracy, or
have we failed so badly that we should pack up and get out before more of
you are killed?

3. Do the orders you get handed down from one headquarters to another, all
far removed from the fighting, seem sensible, or do you think our highest
command is out of touch with the reality of your situation?

4. If you could have a medal or a trip home, which would you take?

5. Are you encouraged by all the talk back home about how brave you are
and how everyone supports you?

Treating soldiers fighting their war as brave heroes is an old civilian
trick designed to keep the soldiers at it. But you can be sure our
soldiers in Iraq are not all brave heroes gladly risking their lives for
us sitting comfortably back here at home.

Our soldiers in Iraq are people, young men and women, and they behave like
people - sometimes good and sometimes bad, sometimes brave, sometimes
fearful. It's disingenuous of the rest of us to encourage them to fight
this war by idolizing them.

We pin medals on their chests to keep them going. We speak of them as if
they volunteered to risk their lives to save ours, but there isn't much
voluntary about what most of them have done. A relatively small number are
professional soldiers. During the last few years, when millions of jobs
disappeared, many young people, desperate for some income, enlisted in the
Army. About 40 percent of our soldiers in Iraq enlisted in the National
Guard or the Army Reserve to pick up some extra money and never thought
they'd be called on to fight. They want to come home.

One indication that not all soldiers in Iraq are happy warriors is the
report recently released by the Army showing that 23 of them committed
suicide there last year. This is a dismaying figure. If 22 young men and
one woman killed themselves because they couldn't take it, think how many
more are desperately unhappy but unwilling to die.

We must support our soldiers in Iraq because it's our fault they're
risking their lives there. However, we should not bestow the mantle of
heroism on all of them for simply being where we sent them. Most are
victims, not heroes.

America's intentions are honorable. I believe that, and we must find a way
of making the rest of the world believe it. We want to do the right thing.
We care about the rest of the world. President Bush's intentions were
honorable when he took us into Iraq. They were not well thought out but
honorable.

Bush's determination to make the evidence fit the action he took, which it
does not, has made things look worse. We pay lip service to the virtues of
openness and honesty, but for some reason, we too often act as though
there was a better way of handling a bad situation than by being
absolutely open and honest.

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