U.S. TROOP MORALE PLUMMETS AS ANGER MOUNTS

U.S. TROOP MORALE PLUMMETS AS ANGER MOUNTS

By Heather Cottin

August 18, 2003--As the Pentagon's occupation of Iraq deepens, GIs and their families are growing angry at the brass and the U.S. government.

An anguished mother in Shelbourne Falls, Mass., waits for word of her son, Justin, who is stationed in the Iraqi desert. "I want them to bring our troops home. I am appalled at Bush's policies. He has got us into a terrible mess," said Susan Schuman. "I don't know anyone around here who disagrees with me."

Web sites filled with e-mails from soldiers and families who oppose the war against Iraq and the military occupation are proliferating. "Somewhere down the line, we became an occupation force in [Iraqi] eyes," said Private Isaac Kindblade of the 671st Engineer Company. "We are outnumbered. We are exhausted. We are in over our heads. The president says, 'Bring 'em on.'" (observer.guardian.co.uk)

A father in Nashville, Tenn., made public an email his soldier son sent him from Iraq. "We are here because he ordered us to be here and now for him to make such a ridiculous statement inviting violence towards us causes us to lose respect for him and his judgment. We are learning that we never should have come here in the first place." The son also wrote, "Get us out of here now! There is nothing we can do to pacify the Iraqi people except get out of their country and allow them to restore order in whatever way THEY wish." (join-snafu.org)

Workers World interviewed two mothers of Marines from Suffolk County, L.I. Suzy and Shalini were both adamantly against the war and the occupation. But they asked that WW not use their last names in order to protect their sons.

"My son is coming home," said Suzy, "but I heard that the trailers that were supposed to be making Weapons of Mass Destruction were actually making helium for children's balloons. I cannot bear that our young people were sent to kill the children of Iraq who just wanted to have beautiful balloons."

Shalini's son was returning, too. "He opposes the war," she said. He is a Marine whom the recruiters pursued. "They should never be allowed to talk to these kids in high school."

The indifference of the military brass to the plight of the soldiers is causing growing resentment, too.

An aunt of a GI in Iraq told Workers World that her nephew measured the temperature inside of his uniform. "It was 150 degrees," she said. When a soldier recently died of heat stroke in Iraq it was no surprise to her.

In Lynwood, Ill., a father mourns his daughter, Army Spc. Rachael Lacy, who died of pneumonia. Moses Lacy said his daughter "was a healthy young woman," but that she had fallen ill within days of receiving anthrax and smallpox vaccinations and never recovered. The Army reports that 100 soldiers have gotten pneumonia in Iraq and southwestern Asia. Two died and another 13 had to be put on respirators.

Erik Gustafson, a veteran of the 1991 Gulf war, has founded Veterans for Com mon Sense. "There is an anger boiling under the surface now," he said.

This anger, notes the online observer.guardian, is exacerbated by government plans to reverse recent increases in "imminent danger" pay and a family-separation allowance.

Even the conservative Army Times military newspaper said these planned cuts made "the Bush administration seem mean-spirited and hypocritical."

And as reported GI casualties are mounting, the Guardian of London reveals that "U.S. military casualties from the occupation of Iraq have been more than twice the number most Americans have been led to believe because of an extraordinarily high number of accidents, suicides and other non-combat deaths in the ranks that have gone largely unreported in the media." The newspaper reports that 827 GIs have been wounded since the military assault began.

But the number may actually be in the thousands: Lt. Col. Allen DeLane told Nat ional Public Radio that 4,000 wounded soldiers have been shipped home to hospitals at Andrews Air Force Base, Walter Reed and Bethesda, and that 90 percent of injuries were directly war-related. (Julian Borger, The Guardian, Aug. 4)

U.S. government officials aren't just covering up the number of GI casualties. They are hiding the numbers of Iraqi dead and wounded, too. And they are covering up the brutal reality of the colonial occupation of Iraq. That's why they want to silence the troops and their families. They are afraid of the GIs, their loved ones, and all the people of the United States who want to end the occupation, end the bloodshed, end the lies and bring the troops home now.