A year or two ago critics of the continuing U.S. occupation in Iraq tried drawing parallels between this conflict and Vietnam. It was difficult for me to see sometimes. One’s a desert- the other’s a jungle. One had a draft, the other has extended deployments and stop-gap redeployments of National Guard units.
But there is at least one thing that Iraq now seems to have in common with Vietnam, and 2008 has in common with 1968. Both Republicans and Democrats are angry with the way the White House has handled things.
“Hawks” think that we may have gone in too soon, with too few allies, too few troops, insufficiently armed and supplied and without adequate planning for what to do after Saddam Hussein was removed.
Most “Doves,” of course, think we shouldn’t have gone in at all, but agree with too few allies and the inadequate planning. And both Hawks and Doves agree that we can’t blame the workers for a botched job. If there’s only one lesson that we seemed to learn from Vietnam, it’s that we should support our troops no matter how much we disagree with their Commander-in-Chief. At lease we’re agreeing on SOMETHING.
I know a young man who aspires to the discipline and prestige of the United States Marine Corps. He wants to make something of himself and he doesn’t see that happening at home on the farm. His girlfriend doesn’t want him to go but she’s so young that she’s not quite ready to wait for him either. He’s determined, even though he’s scared.
Sounds so cliché that I could’ve made it up doesn’t it?
One of my former students cam back from Iraq last week and came to see me. His stories were amazing. Being fired upon almost daily, having to return fire, not knowing when someone with a weapon is serving in a friendly force or an insurgent one. Bureaucratic headaches and personality conflicts all along the chains of command. Troops secure a territory on their patrol, but rather than staying there, they return to base and as soon as they leave, the insurgents return. Come to think of it, Iraq does sound a lot like Vietnam, doesn’t it?
He told me about how instead of trip wired for booby trap mine, now we call them improvised explosive devices (IEDs), they’ve taken to using those infrared or laser activated sensors like stores have in the mall, so that if you pass between the sensors you set off the bomb.
He told me about how the guardsmen worked on humanitarian projects to help the Iraqis in their neighborhoods and how he befriended the kids there. But it’s not the Army or the Guard that’s directly involved in these projects. The soldiers do it when they’re off duty. Sure, we finance things like community soccer fields, but according to this vet, there’s not much accountability. “You hand the Sheik $50,000 for the dirt work and see him driving by in a new car the next day, a week later he comes back and says that they got the dirt work done, but now they need another $70,000” and so on.
Story after story led me to believe that veterans of other wars who’d written anti-war books like Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 and Richard Hooker’s MASH were not such absurd satires as they were accurate memoirs.
He had a buddy who covered a shift of guard duty for him who was shot and wondered if it should’ve been him. He misfired an ordinance he hadn’t been properly trained on which led to policy memos prohibiting anyone in the unit from “wasting” that particular type of ammunition.
He was on the phone with administrators who wanted a full, detailed damage report for a fire fight, WHILE the battle was going on. Difficult to do when you’re one of only two guys in the guard tower being shot at.
And of course there were stories of the chaos, the anarchy, the trash and the heat. Three Baghdad suburbs surrounded their part of Camp Victory and all three hated each other, even though two were both Sunni and only one was Shiite.
We talked a little bit about how we take care of our veterans, like about the Veteran’s Administration and the new G.I. Bill that’s been proposed in Congress. He seemed absolutely thrilled to be home, although through a paperwork SNAFU he was gypped out of a great deal of college funding. Despite that he’s applying for a full time job with the Guard.
I gingerly broached the subject of post-traumatic stress. He confided that there are nightmares, but not about battles or even being over in Iraq. The only dream that troubles him is the one where they call him back.
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