The Daily Background
| American soldiers to face third tour of duty in Iraq
by Arlen Parsa
Although I knew that some Army Reserves divisions were on their second service rotation in Iraq, I did not know that there were any soldiers in Iraq serving their third tour of duty. Well, there will be come January. The Associated Press reports that both the Marines and the Army are “straining to keep a steady flow of combat and support forces to Iraq while giving the troops sufficient time between deployments for rest and retraining.” AP continues:
Both services are far short of their goal of providing two years between deployments; the 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry, for example, will have spent barely more than 12 months at home when it returns next year. The same is true for the division’s 1st Brigade, which officials have said is scheduled to deploy again in January.
The 3rd Infantry, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., is among several units - totaling 57,000 troops - identified by the Pentagon on Friday for deployment in a fresh rotation of forces starting in January. The announcement does not presume any change in troop levels, nor is any major change expected for at least several months.
God damn. Back in Vietnam, they would extend the required tours of duty for both enlisted and drafted soldiers well past the amount of time that they were told that they originally would have to serve. Sometimes soldiers would be informed two or three times that their tour of duty had been extended by several months. In this case, the Pentagon is letting soldiers come home, but only for a short period of time before shipping out again.
Now there are some people (mostly conservatives) who don’t have any pity for our people over there. “They’re soldiers, they knew what they were getting into when they signed up.” In addition to being incredibly cold and unsympathetic, this argument is of course: bullshit. Spending 30 out of the last 42 months at war is not what any enlisted soldier was told, led to believe, or promised they would have do when they signed up.
Of course, some Vietnam-esque troop deployments have happened, with soldiers being told that they would stay to Iraq– before they even made it home. The Pentagon ordered an entire brigade to either stay or turn around and head back to Iraq earlier this year.
No, they were promised, just like we were promised, that Americans would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. They were told, as we were told, that the war would be quick and relatively painless. Or as painless as war can possibly be. Instead, we ended up toppling a brutal dictator (and former Reagan/Bush Sr ally) only to replace it with an even more brutal civil war. A civil war that our people, our men and women are stuck in the middle of now, thanks to this Administration and Republican-controlled Congress’ inability to budge.
Simply put, no matter how strong they may be, no matter how skilled they may be, now matter how well-trained they may be, American soldiers cannot win an Iraqi civil war. It just doesn’t work like that. In the same way that Canada could not have won the American civil war. It just doesn’t work that way.
