“A solid number, perhaps a majority, of the ordinary soldiers believed this war was bullshit”

This letter was sent to our sister publication, GI Special, which is a daily email digest of news and commentary by Thomas Barton who is on our production staff. You can subscribe by emailing thomasfbarton@earthlink.net or order by mail: GI Special, Box 126 , 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657. Personal information was removed to protect the writer from any retaliation from the chain of command.

From: A

I was at FOB Summerall, the former Iraqi Air Force base "K2," near Baiji.

My unit was tasked with base defense, and I [xxxx] the guys and gals in the towers for most of our 9-10 months there.

I was able, therefore, to talk with many of the troops, both active and Guard, at length over the months.

Most knew my politics; as the days wore on, more and more of the enlisteds, E-5 & below, spoke with me about their growing misgivings about the war.

Some were openly angry and contemptuous of the officers, generals, and civilian leadership that sent us there.

A few (including one "good-ol'-boy from Oklahoma, an active duty sergeant with 18 years in) commented on how "if I lived here, I'd want to kill us, too."

Of course, the leadership, especially the officers, all spouted the party line, but it was obvious to me that a solid number, perhaps even a majority, of the ordinary soldiers believed this war was bullshit.

The internet access we had at Summerall was not closely supervised.

We were warned against looking at porn, or passing on information that might be picked up by "the enemy," (I suppose the insurgents were intercepting our satellite signals), but I visited GI Special at least weekly, as well as other sites that better explained what I knew to be going on around me.

I didn't have the ability to print anything, so mostly I just shared stories I read with other soldiers in the contexts of our talks.

I wished I could have circulated printed copies; oh, well.

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