 |
     
|
"We Should Just End It. Bring The Troops Home"September 18, 2010 By Peter Slevin, Washington Post Staff Writer [Excerpts] ELKHART, IND. - The Afghan war began more than half a lifetime ago for the teenagers in Adam Meyers's world history class. "We should just end it. Bring the troops home," said Ashley Ivory, 17, who thinks the war is doing nothing to stop terrorists. "They're just sneaking in here while we're over there. We don't have enough eyes." The views of the students and the community around them echo a growing national skepticism about U.S. involvement in a distant war that will soon enter its 10th year and register its 1,270th U.S. casualty. A majority of Americans say the war has not been worth its cost, an opinion voiced frequently in Elkhart, a hard-luck town that sees the conflict through the lens of loss and economic hardship. Meyers and his students have a particular reason to reflect. Army Spec. Justin B. Shoecraft, 28, who attended Elkhart Memorial High School with Meyers, was killed late last month by a roadside bomb, barely a month after he reached Afghanistan. When his mother in Elkhart heard the news, she screamed, then fainted. As combat deaths reached new monthly highs this year, 69 of the 301 U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan came from a dozen Midwestern states. Among the home towns of the fallen in the past month are Creve Coeur, Ill.; Mulvane, Kan.; Papillion, Neb.; Prairie du Sac, Wis.; White, S.D. And, on the morning of Aug. 24, Elkhart, Ind. Disapproval of the war was once rare. When President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, four weeks after the Twin Towers fell, American support for the overthrow of the Taliban was strong. Ninety-one percent of Americans supported the war at the end of its second month, 79 percent of them "strongly," according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. This July, however, the number seeing the war as worth it dropped to 43 percent, with 53 percent saying the costs outweighed the benefits. Even people who think U.S. troops should keep fighting tend to say so in reluctant tones. "We're stuck. I just wish we could pull out, but we can't," said Becky Cole, an office manager having a drink recently at the Bulldog, a restaurant in east Elkhart. "The one thing I hate about it is we've been there nine years." "I never wanted my son to be a little old obituary in the paper," Donna Shoecraft explains, still reeling from the shock. When she learned that Justin was heading to Afghanistan to fight, she tried to talk him out of it, telling him, "You go over there, you're going to be in nothing but dirt, mud and sand." She and her husband, Carroll, known as "Blue," don't know what inspired Justin to enlist in his mid-20s. Maybe the fact that he had always wanted to drive a tank. Maybe the bonus money and the chance to leave northern Indiana. A few months earlier, his mother had forbidden him from traveling to London. Too dangerous to visit such a big city alone, she said. "We're just old factory people," Donna Shoecraft says. Blue wears an enormous gray beard and punches the clock at a local machine shop. On Sundays, he works at the local drag strip. He spends his spare time collecting Schwinn bicycles and fixing up old cars, most recently a ‘27 Dodge coupe, now a gleaming yellow. After finishing high school in 2001, Justin Shoecraft showed little interest in the military recruiting pitches that came his way. He spent six years hefting boxes for UPS. "Big heart, do anything for you," said Kevin Doctor, who often gave him a ride to work. "Real mild-mannered, head down. The kind of guy who flew under the radar." He married his girlfriend the day before he left for basic training. When a pair of soldiers appeared unannounced at the Shoecrafts' front door the other day, Donna Shoecraft screamed so loudly that neighbors four houses away heard her. The war that she had long doubted finally broke her heart. "Why are we there? Why are we even there?" she asked a few days later, the shock still fresh. "Start taking care of our own people." From the front door of his secondhand shop down the street, Don Fisher watches the comings and goings at the Shoecrafts' home. He was fond of Justin and considers Blue Shoecraft a real friend. But he has not stopped by. "I need to go down and hug him, and I just can't bring myself to do it," Fisher said. "Because I know that when I do, I'm going to cry, too." Fisher is an Army veteran who voted twice for George W. Bush and backed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over Obama. Although polls show stronger support for the war among Republicans than Democrats, Fisher says he always considered the Afghan war unwinnable. The billions in taxpayer dollars should be spent on "people who are sleeping under bridges or living out of food banks," he said. Page 3--> |
©2010 Traveling-Soldier.org |