You can translate the election results however ou want, but that doesn't make it true. The liberals don't need us to help them carry their water...
In politics, perception is reality. And the troops are perceiving that America just turned its back on them, and that they're going to be scapegoated for losing and/or derided as the dregs of society, just like their Vietnam-era predecessors.
One of my Tinseltown contacts has told me that some folks are thinking of updating The Deer Hunter to the Iraq War.