"DING DING DING! What do we have for him, Johnny?"
Posted on 08/11/2007 7:07:38 PM PDT by balch3
Lieutenant Clay Hanna looks sick and white. Like his colleagues he does not seem to sleep. Hanna says he catches up by napping on a cot between operations in the command centre, amid the noise of radio. He is up at 6am and tries to go to sleep by 2am or 3am. But there are operations to go on, planning to be done and after-action reports that need to be written. And war interposes its own deadly agenda that requires his attention and wakes him up.
When he emerges from his naps there is something old and paper-thin about his skin, something sketchy about his movements as the days go by.
The Americans he commands, like the other men at Sullivan - a combat outpost in Zafraniya, south east Baghdad - hit their cots when they get in from operations. But even when they wake up there is something tired and groggy about them. They are on duty for five days at a time and off for two days. When they get back to the forward operating base, they do their laundry and sleep and count the days until they will get home. It is an exhaustion that accumulates over the patrols and the rotations, over the multiple deployments, until it all joins up, wiping out any memory of leave or time at home. Until life is nothing but Iraq.
Hanna and his men are not alone in being tired most of the time. A whole army is exhausted and worn out. You see the young soldiers washed up like driftwood at Baghdad's international airport, waiting to go on leave or returning to their units, sleeping on their body armour on floors and in the dust.
Where once the war in Iraq was defined
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.guardian.co.uk ...
And just what knowledge does the guardian in the UK have to make this claim?
Maybe they should be worried about the UK soldiers, and the islamic invasion being waged in the UK.
Could be because democrats are allowed to serve..
And you know that it is claptrap HOW
You know anybody serving there or that has recently come home etc etc ?
I may see my nephew( a major in the Army reserves ) at a family get together tomorrow
I will ask him what he hears
You see the same thing in the peacetime Army (or Marines) here is the US, when they're out in the field. It's hard work, and the hours are long. Soldiers and Marines are grateful for a few minutes of sleep, even if it's in their gear, in a vehicle, or under a vehicle. It's how they make a tough job a bit easier. Sleep is a luxury, and you grab it when it's available.
The writer is a pansy.
Our soldiers are tested and trained to work and fight with very little sleep. It’s part of what they do. It can help them to win against an intense attack or save money for taxpayers who don’t want to fund an adequate defense (e.g., a defense adequate for knocking Iran’s forces down and getting the whole “War on Terror” thing done while providing other necessary security here and there).
Gee...what makes me think that this writer has never been in the Military, never mind a participant in actual combat.
He says he has been a war correspondent for a decade, but I suspect that being in a war zone of your own free will (as opposed to joining the military of your own free will and going where you are sent) while making a six figure salary and stupidly basking in the reflected danger of the people who are engaged in combat is a difference this idiot cannot fathom.
Here is a little snippet he wrote in an article about Noam Chomsky...
"...What is most troubling about all this is that there is much that Chomsky and I should agree on. Like him, I was opposed to what I believed was an illegal war in Iraq. In my travels in that country, I, too, have been troubled by the consequences of occupation...."
Yeah. No bias there. Not like THIS guy would write anything biased. He is only a journalist (strike one) has read the work of and agrees with Noam Chomsky on a lot of things (strike two) and writes for the Guardian (strike three)
"DING DING DING! What do we have for him, Johnny?"
What do we have for him? How about a pair of woman’s panties from Abu Ghraib.....hahahahah!
This is the kind of article I expect from the anti-war pro-terrorist journalists in Europe.
To hell with them.
Exactly.
If you asked me what I thought life was like for those guys who go out on patrol all the time and are on their second or third deployment, I would say, yeah. They are on edge, tired all the time and want to go home.
But somehow I don’t think educating people about the sacrifices of our soldiers for the sake of inducing our appreciation of it is on this guy’s agenda, given his history.
BTW...I noticed you are new...Welcome to Free Republic.
I was over there in 2004 and have friends that are there now. Yes, you rarely get seven hours sleep- four hours is more normal. Yes, you get tired. And after a while a fascinating thing occurs, you used to it. And it is rare when you can’t get at least seven hours sleep once a week. This guy makes it sound like they are walking zombies with dark rings under their eyes. I guess he didn’t go to college either, much less take any finals. This writer needs to get a clue, maybe he should take out a loan and buy one.
Thanks for your service, bud. When you’re up here in MA, your money is no good here...:)
fyi
As a soldier for 5 years and a warrant officer for almost a year now, I can say that it’s true. Soldiers are tired. But, you know what? WE VOLUNTEERED FOR IT!!! WE KNOW WHAT WE’RE GETTING INTO WHEN WE SIGN UP!!! And as for the lieutenant the article talks about, his oath of office (as well as mine) states that we take take this obligation FREELY without mental reservation or purpose of evasion. So, to say that we should all feel sorry for soldiers because we’re being worked to the bone and somehow that we are being indentured into this line of work is folly.
I know what tired is. I was a medic for an infantry platoon with the 1-325 AIR, 82nd Airborne Division while in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Seven day patrols, constantly fixing the ailments of my 11 Bang-Bangs, even losing one of them. It takes a toll. But we all kept on. None of us quit. Most volunteers who enlist or become officers or warrant officers (which we helicopter pilots are the best of the group, haha) are tough and do exactly what is needed to get the job done. That’s what we do. That’s what makes us the best military in the world.
Sorry, got on a rant there, didn’t I?
All I can say is, if our men are tired and sleepy from fighting for freedoms, some of those so-called free countries might pitch in and help more, instead of taking it for granted that America will always defend them.
I am grateful that they are protecting us. If the rest of the world is safer because of them, I’m okay with that as a happy byproduct.
Yeah, I just read where the UK soldiers “lost” in Basra, Pete is embed in the wrong area; he should go crap on his own. We are winning!
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