Our soldiers in Iraq aren't heroes (But Andy Rooney is! (not))

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[Peter J. Huss]

Our soldiers in Iraq aren't heroes



4/12/2004

By ANDY ROONEY

Most of the reporting from Iraq is about death and destruction. We don't learn much about what our soldiers in Iraq are thinking or doing. There's no Ernie Pyle to tell us, and, if there were, the military would make it difficult or impossible for him to let us know. It would be interesting to have a reporter ask a group of our soldiers in Iraq to answer five questions and see the results:

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

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?

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?

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

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

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.

We pin medals on their chests to keep them going. We speak of them as if they volunteered to risk their lives to save ours, but there isn't much voluntary about what most of them have done. A relatively small number are professional soldiers. During the last few years, when millions of jobs disappeared, many young people, desperate for some income, enlisted in the Army. About 40 percent of our 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. They want to come home.

One indication that not all soldiers in Iraq are happy warriors is the report recently released by the Army showing that 23 of them committed suicide there last year. This is a dismaying figure. If 22 young men and one woman killed themselves because they couldn't take it, think how many more are desperately unhappy but unwilling to die.

We must support our soldiers in Iraq because it's our fault they're risking their lives there. However, we should not bestow the mantle of heroism on all of them for simply being where we sent them. Most are victims, not heroes.

America's intentions are honorable. I believe that, and we must find a way of making the rest of the world believe it. We want to do the right thing. We care about the rest of the world. President Bush's intentions were honorable when he took us into Iraq. They were not well thought out but honorable.

Bush's determination to make the evidence fit the action he took, which it does not, has made things look worse. We pay lip service to the virtues of openness and honesty, but for some reason, we too often act as though there was a better way of handling a bad situation than by being absolutely open and honest.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

This is your brain.

This is your brain on liberalism.

Any questions?

[KQQL]

@

[Lokibob]

Oh, hell no, I'm not blaming myself. I did what I had to do 34 years ago and knew it was the right thing to do.

The Buffalo newspaper corporate office is going to hear from me for sure.

And they will get a followup letter tomorrow, asking what they did about it.

And another one wednesday, ETC.

I'll be nice, just demanding a retraction and censure of Rooney.

Did anybody find out if he said it on 60 mins?

[vikingchick]

Our soldiers in Iraq aren't heroes

This is an outrage. A pox on him and his ilk. What's the definition of traitor???

[kellynla]

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

THE BUFFALO NEWS TELEPHONE NUMBER IS 716-849-4444


JERRY GOLDBERG IS THE EDITOR IN CHIEF

He had no business publishing this piece and I told him so.
It was his decision whether or not to publishit and he made it.

I just got off the telephone with this moron who never served in the military and hasn't been to Iraq.

I blistered him good!!

I AM OUTRAGED!

Please call and voice your outrage too!

Semper Fi,
Kelly

[BlessedByLiberty]

He is an embarrassment to the greatest generation - well every generation has its share of shameful people and Rooney qualifies.

What a great idea - anyone who knows vets or has contact with VFW folks should make certain that they receive this information in their emails. I'm sending it along right now.

[baseballmom]

It was his decision whether or not to publishit and he made it.

Freudian slip? LOL

[Robert_Paulson2]

rose...
why don't you tell us what you REALLY think?

[kellynla]

"Freudian slip?"
yes I saw it and decided to leave it in

I HOPE YOU ALL WILL CALL THE NEWSPAPER!

We have lost 23 Marines in the last eight days and this POS had no business writing this article and the Buffalo Chips had no business publishing it!

[BossLady]

I was so PO'd at reading this!!!! Sometimes the only way I can deal with such things is through humor.....

Andy Rooney needs to return to his pod people on Saturn and stay there...

[MozartLover]

"Treating soldiers fighting their war as brave heroes is an old civilian trick designed to keep the soldiers at it. "

My son is training to be a combat medic. If/when his time comes to be deployed in battle he WILL be a hero. The hell with that.....................he already is.

Mr. Rooney, sit down and SHUT UP.

[OrioleFan]

Interesting read (don't skip to the end to see the key):

This is the last of these columns from (location 1). By the time you read this, the old man will be on his way back to America. After that will come a long, long rest. And after the rest, well, you never can tell.

Undoubtebly this seems to be a funny time for a fellow to be quitting the war. It is a funny time. But I'm not leaving because of a whim, or even especially because I'm homesick. I'm leaving for one reason only - because I have just got to stop. "I've had it," as they say in the Army. I have had all I can take for a while.

I've been (months) months overseas since this war started; have written about 700,000 words about it; have totalled nearly a year in the front lines.

I do hate terribly to leave right now, but I have given out. I've been immersed in it too long. My spirit is wobbly and my mind is confused. The hurt has finally become too great.

All of a sudden it seemed to me that if I heard one more shot or saw one more dead man, I would go off my nut. And if I had to write one more column, I'd collapse. So I'm on my way.

It may be that a few months of peace will restore some vim in my spirit, and I can go war-horsing off to (location 2). We'll see what a little New Mexico sunshine does along that line.

EVEN AFTER two and a half years of war writing there still is a lot I would like to tell. I wish right now that I could tell you about our gigantic and staggering supply system that keeps these great armies moving.

I am sorry I haven't been able to get around to many branches of service that so often are neglected. I would like to have written about the transportation corps and the airport engineers and the wire-stringers and the chemical mortars and the port batalions. To all of those that I have missed, my apologies. But the Army over here is just too big to cover it all.

I KNOW THE FIRST question everyone will ask when I get home is:

"When will the war be over?"

So I'll answer even before you ask me, and the answer is: "I don't know." We all hope and most of us think it won't be too long now.

And yet there is the possibility of it going on and on, even after we are deep in (country 1). The (people 1) are desperate and their leaders have nothing to quit for. Every day the war continues is another hideous blackmark against the (country 1) nation. They are beaten and they haven't quit. Every life lost from here is a life lost to no purpose.

If (country 1) does deliberately drag this war on she will so infuriate the world by her inhuman bullheadness that she is apt to be committing national suicide.

In our campaigns we felt we were fighting, on the whole, a pretty good people. But we don't feel that way now. A change has occurred. On the western front the (people 1) have shown their cruelty of mind. We didn't used to hate them, but we do now.

The outstanding figure on this western front is (person 1). He is so honest and sincere that he will probably not get his proper credits, except in military textbooks.

But he has proved himself a great general in every sense of the word. And as a human being, he is just as great. Having him in command has been a blessed good fortune for America.

I CANNOT HELP but feel bad about leaving. Even hating the whole business as much as I do, you come to be a part of it. And you leave some of yourself here when you depart. Being with the American soldier has been a rich experience.

To the thousands of men that I know personally and the other hundreds of thousands for who I have had the humble privilege of being a sort of mouthpiece, this then is to say goodbye - and good luck."

--(author)

Key:
(location) = Europe
(months) = 29
(location 2) = the Pacific
(country 1) = Germany
(people 1) = Germans
(person 1) = Lt. Gen. Omar Nelson Bradley
(author) = Ernie Pyle

On September 5, 1944, Ernie Pyle wrote his last column in Europe. He returned to the U.S. for health reasons, but was unable to stay away for long. Shortly afterward, he returned to the Pacific where a Japanese machine-gun bullet killed him on the island of Ie Shima on April 18, 1945, at the age of 44.

My 2 cents: The difference between Ernie Pyle and the media whores of today, is that he told it like it was and he had respect for our people in uniform. The ilk from the AP, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, BBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, etc , etc, couldn’t pack Ernie Pyle’s lunch.

[ironman]

"We must support our soldiers in Iraq because it's our fault they're risking their lives there."

What a major league blame America first clymer. It was not our fault Saddam was a terrorist murdering dictator.

[kellynla]

And if you would prefer to contact "60 Minutes" by snail mail or telephone here are the vitals.

60 Minutes
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

PHONE: (212) 975-3247

[Indie]

Mr Rooney really needs to start looking over his shoulder. He has quite possibly placed himself in danger with his big mouth...

[leadpenny]

I'd like to see what would have happened to him if he had written this piece for Stars and Stipes during WWII.

Patton would have done more than 'B' slap him with a pair of riding gloves.

[F.J. Mitchell]

However our troops would have answered those five questions during WWII, the answers from todays troops in Iraq and elsewhere in the war on terror, would be pretty much the same. The difference is the reporters asking the questions. During WWII our Ernie Pyle and other of our reporters were on our side.

Andy Roonie is a very mixed up little liberal, who some of us once respected and enjoyed. Not anymore, he's like a vicious little beast with an insatiable appitite for eating his own. Rather than archiving the punky little pages of his non-achievements, they should be covered up with the trash in some land field, with a small spot reserved for his scrawny carcus when his bitter existance shrivels into empty nothingness.

[nightdriver]

Too bad ya wasn't in the top of one of da towers on 9/11, Mr. Rooney.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Vote for one or all. Feel free to add your own. "

4. Poltroon

[kellynla]

Ping! And please ping every veteran you know!
We lost 23 Marines in 8 days and this BS from Rooney will not be tolerated! Please call the editor of the Buffalo News and voice your outrage.

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

Semper Fi,
Kelly