South of Baghdad, U.S. troops find fatigue, frustration
Can we bring democracy to Iraq?
MCK-SOUTHEAST OF SALMAN PAK, Iraq — Standing in a small room in the Iraqi home they’d raided an hour earlier, a dozen soldiers from the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division were trading jokes when 1st Sgt. Troy Moore, Company A’s senior enlisted man, shouted out.
“We’re bringing democracy to Iraq,” he called, with obvious sarcasm, as a reporter entered the room. Then Moore began loudly humming the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Within seconds the rest of the troops had joined in, filling the small, barren home in the middle of Iraq with the patriotic chorus of a Civil War-era ballad.
U.S. officials say that security has improved since the Sledgehammer Brigade, as the 3rd Brigade is called, arrived five months ago as part of the 30,000-strong buildup of additional U.S. troops to Iraq and took control of an area 30 miles southeast of Baghdad. The brigade, with 3,800 soldiers, has eight times the number of troops that were in the area before.
We do much better under “battle conditions” rather than setting up a nanny state against a bunch of Arabs. We could have done much better “winning the peace” if private contractors like Blackwater and Halliburton were there to simply bring our boys food and water and bring back power and water to Iraq. Instead they’re running amuck shooting and torturing people with no accountability.
Bill,
Bush is trying to teach the military to sit around the camp fire and sing Kumbayah.
I hope I don’t ever have to listen to to to … a bunch of warriors hand holding and talking about how warm and fuzzy they felt watching little kids going to school.
Mad Dog
I think we’re on the same page here but not sure. I like our military better than these “private contractors”.
OORAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“I like our military better than these “private contractors”.”
What’s the difference?
My bet is that you don’t get to be a contract soldier without SOME military experience.
In a free-market sense mercenaries have it figured out. Why work for minimum wage (military) when you can make bank (govt contracts)?
oops!
Closed italics.
Thought I did
Can’t help myself.
Cap’n,
Cadets at North Georgia worked the G-8 event held on the Georgia coast a couple years ago.
Most reported recruiting contacts with private companies offering them $100,000 per year as private security ‘workers’ in Iraq.
Some training seems to be the minimum requirement, not some experience.
Police officers were recruited and hired as well.