“ANGER AND RESENTMENT ARE HIGH”….I don’t really know what to make of this, since it doesn’t seem to jibe with survey data, but Steve Clemons sat next to a soldier from the 82nd Airborne on a flight back from Europe the other day and reports that he wasn’t a happy camper:
This guy I met is not one prone to talk; he was very serious, very mellow ? and comes from a family of enlisted military men. His dad was in Vietnam.
He has had one rotation in Afghanistan, one in Iraq. He is now in Germany but will soon be transfered back to Iraq. He was at Tora Bora and has seen a lot of Iraq, Afghan, and American dead.
According to him, 75% of all soldiers want Bush defeated in the election and don’t care who defeats him; anger and resentment are high. He says that 90% of the officers remain far out of harm’s way, from lietenants all the way up ? and that only about 10% of the officer corps has some reasonable concern for the troops. There is general understanding that the officers are hiding in holes, or holding back in well-defended buildings and quite cavalier about sending troops out for assignments and errands that are frequently stupid, poorly planned, and dangerous.
Is this a peek at a truth that no one else is reporting, or is it just the griping of a disgruntled GI? I don’t know. But read the whole thing and judge for yourself.
