Posted by Dan Ewert : 4/12/2004 10:16:00 PM (Archive Link)
Andy’s Losing It

I just read Andy Rooney’s column for today, which is entitled “Our Soldiers in Iraq Aren’t Heroes.” In it, he posits the following five questions which he’d like reporters to ask a group of U.S. troops in Iraq:

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

My response: Just because they’re in the military, it doesn’t mean their brains or political ideologies have been removed. As such, I’m sure you could find a mix of people saying both yes and no. Considering, however, that most liberals are generally disinclined to enter the military, you’ll probably find more yeses.

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?

My response: It’s been just one year since Iraq fell. Nobody claimed things were going to be great at this point. You can’t take a country that survived 25 years of tyranny and suddenly turn it into a liberal democracy. It takes a little time and there will be bumps in the road, which is what we’re seeing now. Furthermore, while this may seem harsh, it’s not up to the average soldier to make policy decisions.

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?

My response: Two points here. The first is that you will probably find just a handful of soldiers throughout the history of warfare who would agree that their headquarters knew both what was going on in the field and also how to approach it. This is because there is a certain natural disconnect, but also because of my second point: headquarters is looking at the big picture and is weighing many different considerations. What may be best tactically in a given situation may be bad strategically or may be detrimental to the overall effort. For example, the best military solution for the Fallujah problem is to bomb it into the ground. Obviously, though, that won’t sit well with many people and Iraq will only become worse as we’ll lose the trust of the overall Iraqi citizenry. Also, headquarters is subject to civil political processes, decisions, and policies that oversee and determine what the military will do. Rooney himself is trying to affect the military side by first affecting the political side, so this point is self-evident. At any rate, because headquarters will naturally, and possibly necessarily, be in procedural conflict with the soldier, Rooney’s asking this question is akin to asking if grass is green.

This isn’t to say that the big picture itself is always best. Vietnam is a good case where the intended strategy of containment restrained military options and prevented us from actually being victorious.

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

My response: Trips home are what one would preferably choose. Medals, though, are given for doing what must be done and for extraordinary actions in already extraordinary circumstances.

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

My response: Frankly, I think this is a catch-22 question since the rest of the column makes clear that Rooney thinks anybody who answers yes is a deluded idiot. He obviously wants them to say no. As a non-military person myself, I can’t claim to know what their answer will be and therefore won’t venture to answer it for them. One thing I can say… though they could be encouraged by talk of their bravery and of their support back home, I think they’d absolutely be discouraged by talk from people saying they aren’t brave, aren’t heroes, and that they don’t support them. So… keep up the good work, Andy! I’m sure you can succeed in dispiriting more troops.

Other points: Rooney points out how 40% of the 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.” He even wants to pin this on the laggard economy of the last few years. Look… if you signed up for the Guard or Reserves to get money or to qualify for the GI Bill and now you’re getting bent out of shape because you have to fight, I have no sympathy for you. When you signed up, you knew what the potential consequences were. You knew the government may call upon you to go to war and that was the deal you made with the government when it paid you and gave you other benefits. Signing up for the military is not something to be done lightly and if you are unable or unwilling to accept or fulfill the obligations that are inherent in doing so, then don’t sign up. While I can sympathize with those who are away from their families and that they don’t like it, the responsible soldiers understand that this is a necessary consequence of the duty they’ve sworn to uphold, and they will do it.

This is probably the most irritating section:

“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”

There’s no civilian trick to it… most of us actually do think they’re brave. And while yes, they are just ordinary people, extraordinary things are expected of them. We expect them to be pushed to their physical and mental limits for the purpose of defending their country. We expect them to kill their opponents, destroy their opponents’ infrastructure, and defend innocents and allies. That is all a bit more than what we expect from an office building cubicle dweller. As such, we honor the soldier because he does what we do not and, because of him, don’t have to. He is an ordinary person who has risen the occasion and become something greater. He deserves our adulation and anybody who refuses to give it is appallingly unappreciative.