Republicans do not support our troops

Republicans always claim that they support the troops and Democrats don't. Neo-cons accuse Democrats of wanting to cut-n-run. Conservatives accuse Democrats of abandoning our troops on the battlefield when Democrats begin talking about leaving Iraq. Republicans slap yellow ribbon stickers on the bumpers and away they go in their SUVs on their merry, reality-free way. Those of us in the reality-based world know that each one of their accusations is a lie.

Republicans did not provide the troops they sent into Iraq with proper body armor. Those troops have had to buy it on their own. Many ingenius efforts the families and friends of our troops have raised money to buy the appropriate body armor because the Republicans wouldn't.

Republicans did not equip the vehicles in which our troops ride with the proper armor to protect our troops from the roadside bombs. Troops were forced to improvise. Many were needlessly killed, maimed or wounded.

[Troops would] rather not risk another deployment that is now fifteen months long, because you can’t enjoy retirement benefits when kids are stomping on what used to be your intestines after a five hundred pound bomb disintegrated the Humvee you were in because, oh beans, the Army thought it was too expensive to put armor underneath it. That money was better spent putting Velcro pockets on our new uniforms.
(Army of Dude)

Republicans contracted out support duties for the occupation of Iraq. Companies like Halliburton have made billions, yet they have not provided our troops with basic necessities. Necessities like clean water.

I'm here today because I want the american public to know what's happening. There are lot of soldiers over there, they might come home without a bullet wound, but there's a lot of them that are gonna have pathogens in their blood....because of Halliburton.
-- Ben Carter, former KBR/Halliburton Water Purification Specialist

Now ArmyofDude tells us how the military treats our troops in order to make sure that the Republican's surge has enough troops. For those of you who don't know, he's a marine stationed in Iraq. He's also a great writer who makes me think that we've found the Tim O'Brien for the Iraq War.

We roll our eyes every time we hear the term ‘re-enlistment brief.’ Ugh. Since before we deployed, we’ve been collectively forced to attend a meeting every few months where some dude lays out the news: stay in the Army, and you’ll be handsomely rewarded. $15,000, college time, Airborne school, the works. Serve your country for a few more years, come on. They have a big sheet with everyone’s name, kind of like a grocery list. They check yes, no or maybe next to your name. When you tell them no, it was always the same chilly reply: you’ll fail on the outside. You’re just a vet with no skills, who would hire you? Before we left we must have had the lowest re-enlistment rate in the division. The only people convinced to re-enlist were those with families, who couldn’t risk getting out and suddenly not having a monthly check and health insurance. For the single guys, forget about it. Three or four years were enough for us. I knew the military life wasn’t for me.

Four years of war and this Army is a skeleton of its former self. Equipment is broken or obsolete, thousands are dead and wounded and many of us can’t wait to get off the Hindenburg. For awhile, deployments were kept to a year, with at least twelve months back home to recuperate, to get new equipment, to bury the dead. To keep the surge going, deployments have been extended to fifteen months to keep the year at home from shrinking down to nine or less months. The number of people getting out was devastating, so the Army needed a new plan to keep people in. New slogan and advertising campaign? Check. Stop loss program? Check. Bigger bonuses? Check. Guaranteeing non-deployable positions at training posts and recruiting stations, acknowledging people are scared stiff to go to Iraq? Check. Still the numbers are low. After watching too many 80s gang movies, someone thought of such a simple, foolproof idea: good ol’ fashioned blackmail.

Before we left Baghdad, the re-enlistment briefs got a little more disturbing. Instead of letting you know what a bum you’ll become if you leave the Army after your enlistment, they put it in simple terms: if you don’t re-enlist, you’ll be thrown in 5th Brigade, the Stryker unit on Ft. Lewis that was being stood up, and yes, they were deploying as soon as they could. So you might as well stay where your friends are and come back to Iraq with them. Otherwise, you’ll be taking your chances by getting your ass stop-lossed and sent to Iraq in as little as six months to a year after you returned. Better off with the sure thing. Here’s a pen, junior. If you got out after July 2008, you were screwed. I, on the other hand, was in the clear since I was getting out at the end of 2007. The options were re-enlist, extend to meet the unit’s needs, or take no action. I checked take no action, which meant my name would be added to the pool of possible candidates for 5th Brigade. No matter. It was of no consequence if I separated from the Army in 3rd or 5th Brigade. A lot of us were in that boat. Still, it spooked us that someone could come to us with a list and a smile and say in so many words that we were fucked into another deployment unless we added years to our contracts. In short, the thanks we got for serving our country was being forced into a game of Russian Roulette. Take the risk, pull the trigger. See what happens.

Month thirteen into our deployment and someone is getting desperate. They pick the best times to hold these briefs. We just spent a week straight in western Baqubah, where the explosions haven’t let up since Operation Arrowhead Ripper began weeks ago. Mercifully they brought us in for 48 hours to sleep in a bed in lieu of a muggy rooftop. The next morning a certain group was to meet for a re-enlistment brief. Those selected had the same thing in common: they all said no to re-enlistment at one time, and they all are set to get out of the Army from October 2008 to around October 2009. Privates to Specialists to Staff Sergeants, all in the same sinking boat of deceit. They were told that those not re-enlisting would receive orders to a new unit 24 hours after returning to Ft. Lewis. In a month they would be going to another post after fifteen months of time spent in Iraq, to a unit that could be deploying in the next sixty days! That meant either an Airborne unit or a regular light infantry outfit, meaning Bradleys or Humvees (which have a poor track record against wired propane tanks and landmines buried in the road). So here’s the deal, clear cut:

Re-Enlist
College Time
Bonus Money
We Love You

Don’t Re-Enlist
30 Out of The Next 32 Months Spent In Iraq
Humvee or Bradley Unit
You’re Going To Die
(Army of Dude)

To compound the incriminating anecdote from ArmyofDude, General William Odom asserts that the real way to support the troops is to bring them home. The latest general to come out against the occupation.

If the Democrats truly want to succeed in forcing President Bush to begin withdrawing from Iraq, the first step is to redefine supporting the troops" as withdrawing them, citing the mass of accumulating evidence of the psychological as well as the physical damage that the president is forcing them to endure because he did not raise adequate forces. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress could confirm this evidence and lay the blame for "not supporting the troops" where it really belongs – on the president. And they could rightly claim to the public that they are supporting the troops by cutting off the funds that he uses to keep U.S. forces in Iraq.
...
To force him to begin a withdrawal before then, the first step should be to rally the public by providing an honest and candid definition of what "supporting the troops" really means and pointing out who is and who is not supporting our troops at war. The next step should be a flat refusal to appropriate money for to be used in Iraq for anything but withdrawal operations with a clear deadline for completion.
(Nieman Watch, h/t to dKos)

The question is do we have enough evidence yet to refute all of the Republican lies? Not enough or the right kind of body armor? Check. Vehicles without armor? Check. Unsafe drinking water for the troops? Check. Blackmailing troops into re-upping for another tour to make sure the surge has enough troops? Check. Do we have enough people claiming that we need to get out of Iraq? Check.

I've listed the facts about how Republicans do not support the troops. It ain't pretty. What more proof do we need? Let's support the troops by bringing them home.