Thread: 10,000 US troops dead

Originally Posted by Somaton

Dying at young age far away from your land and loved ones, killed by someone or something you don't really care jack **** about. Involved in an agenda stitched by the government, making you a puppet serving their cause in a foreign land.

And as a puppet you have no heart, and that is why the death of those men is disturbing to me.

Actually, it was a very pressing strategic compulsion for the US to conduct the war in Iraq.

The rationale that was officially stated were just political hogwash to bring all on board, the domestic public and also the international mass and nothing more.

Therefore, one should not read too much into the same.

However, the dead would have been less and the situation would not have been this murky if the campaign had been thought through to the logical end and not executed in a 'Slam, Bam, Thank you, Ma'am' mode.

This is also borne out by the u/m article.

UK ex-envoy spills beans
Blair: Seduced

London, Nov. 7 (Reuters): Prime Minister Tony Blair was “seduced by the glamour of US power” in the build-up to the Iraq war and repeatedly failed to influence US policy, a former top British diplomat said in comments published today.

Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador in Washington who was heavily involved in the pre-war planning, said Blair was reluctant to negotiate conditions with President George W. Bush over Britain’s support for war.

Blair did not use his position as Washington’s most important ally to delay the start of the war to give more time to plan for what to do after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Meyer said.

“Britain should have made its participation in any war dependent on a fully worked-out plan, agreed by both sides, for the rehabilitation of Iraq after Saddam’s demise,” Meyer wrote in memoirs serialised in two British newspapers today.

“We may have been the junior partner in the enterprise, but the ace up our sleeve was that America did not want to go it alone.”

Meyer, ambassador in Washington from 1997 to February 2003 but now retired from the diplomatic service, said Britain’s failure to press for more planning was still being felt. He said in the Guardian and the Daily Mail that delaying the invasion from spring 2003 to the autumn would have given more time for planning for the aftermath and might have made it possible to agree on a second UN resolution

Somaton,
Here's the second letter in as many weeks from a soldier KIA in Iraq that professes strongs support for the war.

Philadelphia Inquirer
November 8, 2005

Soldier's Last Mail: If I Die, No Regret

An Army captain wrote an e-mail to his family and friends just before his death in Iraq.

By Bonnie L. Cook, Inquirer Staff Writer

In a remarkable e-mail written just prior to his death in Iraq late last week, a career soldier raised in Montgomery County told his family he would have no regrets if he lost his life in battle.

Capt. Jeffrey P. Toczylowski, 30, a Special Forces detachment commander assigned to First Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), asked that friends and family not "be sad for me."

"It was an honor to serve my country, and I wouldn't change a thing. It was just my time," he wrote.

Toczylowski fell from a helicopter during combat operations Nov. 3, the Army said yesterday.

The e-mail, read by his father, Philip M. Toczylowski of Ambler, during a telephone interview, exhorted relatives and friends to "be happy for the time we had - not the future we won't."

He left instructions for a party in Las Vegas and said "$100 K" would be available to pay for travel and accommodations.

It may be hard for the dead soldier's companions to treat his death lightly any time soon; his father cried repeatedly as he read aloud his son's last wishes.

Philip Toczylowski said his son had been in Iraq only 17 days when he was killed. The younger man had recently lost a buddy from a heart attack. The loss made Toczylowski aware of his own mortality, his father said, and prompted his son to write an e-mail for friends and family in the event of his death.

Toczylowski perished of injuries suffered in a fall from a helicopter during a combat "infiltration" in Anbar province.

He was pronounced dead at an undisclosed military treatment facility after being airlifted from battle, said a statement issued by the Army.

Maj. James O. Gregory, public affairs officer for the Special Forces and a friend of Toczylowski's, said in an e-mail that the incident was under investigation by the Army. He declined to divulge any details.

"It would be inappropriate for me to speculate as to the cause of his fall," said Gregory, from the Army Special Operations Command Center at Fort Bragg, N.C.

"I can tell you that he will be missed by many on both sides of the [Atlantic] Ocean, to include his fellow brothers in arms here at Fort Bragg," Gregory said.

In the message, Toczylowski adamantly defended the military aims of this country in Iraq.

"Don't ever think that you are defending me by slamming the global war on terrorism or the U.S. goals in that war," he wrote. "As far as I am concerned, we can send guys like me to go after them, or we can wait for them to come back to us again.

"I died doing something I believed in and have no regrets, except that I couldn't do more."

Toczylowski's father and mother, Margaret R. Toczylowski, were making arrangements for a funeral service Friday at Valley Forge Military Academy and College, and burial Monday at Arlington National Cemetery.

Virginia Frantz, director of alumni relations at Valley Forge, said Toczylowski was commissioned in 1995 as a second lieutenant through the academy's Reserve Officer Training Corps.

Frantz said he was vice president of his class.

"He was an all-round good cadet, and a very nice young man, and we are devastated by his loss," Frantz said.

Toczylowski earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, in 1997.

That same year, he took his first assignment, leading a platoon with the 554th Military Police Company in Vaihingen, Germany. He deployed to Bosnia and elsewhere.

He served three years as a force protection officer at Special Operations Command Europe in Stuttgart, Germany. After that, he trained with the Army's Special Forces, and was serving in that capacity when he was killed.

Since he went to Texas, Toczylowski had hardly been home, but he was always a presence, said lifelong friend Tom Schneider. An infectious laugh and a genuine interest in others made him an instant hit wherever he went.

"Anything that was challenging he wanted to do - then he'd move on to the next challenge," said Schneider, who remembered his friend passing up the good time of senior week in high school to attend a special camp to help him get into Valley Forge Military Academy. "That's how he started his career, and that's how he ended his career - putting himself out for the next challenge."

Originally Posted by Ray

Actually, it was a very pressing strategic compulsion for the US to conduct the war in Iraq.

The rationale that was officially stated were just political hogwash to bring all on board, the domestic public and also the international mass and nothing more.

Therefore, one should not read too much into the same.

However, the dead would have been less and the situation would not have been this murky if the campaign had been thought through to the logical end and not executed in a 'Slam, Bam, Thank you, Ma'am' mode.

This is also borne out by the u/m article.

Sir,

1. WMD wasn't the only rational present for the war. While it was stressed by the administration, the MSM also picked up this ball and ran with it.

2. The DoD-State disconnect and resulting faulty assumptions resulted in the Phase IV failures that allowed a more robust insurgency to build (the seeds for the insurgency were already sown before we invaded, we just provided more fertile conditions for them to sprout).

3. I don't buy the argument in the paper article you posted. PM Blair was solidly behind President Clinton during Desert Fox and there's no doubt that he was on board. I hint some bitterness in the ambassador's comments as well as a touch of "I told you so." This may not be the case, but the article portarys a very weak position and the argument of waiting six months and the Russians, French and Germans will change their mind just doesn't wash for me. Waiting wouldn't have solved anything; however, I think better diplomacy and some compromise on post war reconstruction during the summer and fall of 2002 could have made a difference. Maybe not, but by 2003, I think the die was already cast.

Originally Posted by shek

the article portarys a very weak position and the argument of waiting six months and the Russians, French and Germans will change their mind just doesn't wash for me.

30 days would have added a Canadian brigade.

shek,

Waiting wouldn't have solved anything; however,

what felt wrong about the time we attacked (spring of 2003) was that i really did feel that it was the military running the show as far as the timeline was concerned. the pressure in fall 2002 reached an overwhelming crescendo by spring 2003 because military commanders wanted to fight and win the war before the grueling summer heat and winter cold.

that's the wrong way to fight a war. it reminded me a tad of august 1914, when russia and germany abandoned diplomacy because the military establishment in both countries were screaming incessantly that any delay would absolutely wreak havoc on their precise timetables.

from the diplomatic side, many american diplomats and FSOs have told me that they really did feel given some more time and better diplomacy we could have gotten russia to stay neutral, germany to maybe even give some symbolic support. the extent to which we were rushed (and american diplomacy was bungled) could be seen by turkey, of all places, denying the 4th ID space. even turkish politicians were surprised that the vote went as it did. (although you are right in that i highly doubt any amount of time could shift france )

OTOH, i didn't feel that was the biggest mistake we've made. the biggest mistake was the whole DoD-State disconnect, when rumsfeld and wolfowitz, glorying in the 21-day march to baghdad, froze out state through almost ALL the initial occupation stages and pinned their complete political hopes on ahmad chalabi being the iraqi karzai. state had done months, if not years, of post-war planning, and that was all thrown down the tubes in the feeling that "hey, by fall, we're not even going to be here."

to be sure, that was also something of a failure of state. powell should have pushed harder for state control, something he TRIED to do but could not.

Originally Posted by Somaton

shek:
I think the overwhelming majority don't care about Iraq more than they care about Cambodia, Niger, Libya, Lithuania etc.
They might do now, but only because they're right in the middle of it. If you’d asked any soldier six years ago what they thought of the situation in Iraq, I guess the answer would have been pretty much the same, as if you've asked them today, about the countries I listed above.

The soldiers do what they are told to do and get paid for, how many soldiers do you think would be in Iraq, if they didn't receive a pay cheque every month?
Maybe as many as all of those who are fighting for the cause.

Of course I'm projecting my views, anti-war or not but as the thoughts of my own, using myself as a reference.

edit: regarding the threat you say Saddam was, honestly I didn't feel very threatend. I mean, Iraq wasn't able to win a fight with Iran alone. But he did have a sword an and a gun.

Somaton,

Yet another article that refutes your assertion that the average US soldier opposes the war and its aims:

Christian Science Monitor
November 10, 2005
Pg. 2

Dedication Is Visible Among New Soldiers

As the nation honors veterans, the next generation looks more diverse and professional.

By Mark Sappenfield, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON -- On a day when the warriors of America's past will talk of great sacrifices long remembered and old friends not forgotten, a new generation of soldiers deployed to the far corners of the Middle East is beginning to pencil in the first lines of its own story.

It is already obvious that this is a force unlike any America has sent to war - older, more diverse, and all volunteers. But gradually, the ways in which these wars spawned by Sept. 11 are shaping these troops are also becoming apparent.

In the midst of a war with no clear endpoint, the ultimate judgment of this generation of fighters must wait for Veterans Days to come. But if World War II veterans were perceived to be the greatest generation and Vietnam's conscripts a lost generation, then those who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan today could be called the dedicated generation - convinced of America's cause and determined to shepherd it through days of dust and destruction.

It is perhaps most apparent in reenlistment rates, which continue to exceed the Pentagon's goals more than four years into the war on terror. Yet more deeply, military sociologists suggest that this war is having a profound and unique effect on many men and women, putting them face to face with the struggle for freedom and giving them a greater sense of purpose.

That war should be a life-changing experience is hardly a surprising thought. But in his interviews with troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Morten Ender of the United States Military Academy notes that three-quarters of them describe their deployment as a "turning point" - a number that strikes him as high.

"In World War II, soldiers knew what they had to do, and they wanted to do it and come home to get on with life," he says. "In Vietnam, [the war] became a turning point, because there was a sense [among the conscripted soldiers] that they had no control."

Since the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are all volunteers, the war was very much part of a conscious career choice, and the intensity of the experience is focusing their lives. For some, it is a desire to get out and move on to anything else. Yet the reenlistment rates also suggest that many are finding a deeper love for service and a connection to something greater than themselves.

"It really did open my eyes," says Spc. Ryan Snyder, a military policeman, of his year in Iraq. "I realized how lucky we are as American citizens."

He is one of that class of recruits who signed up after Sept. 11, and he has already reenlisted. In fact, his division - the 1st Cavalry - made 125 percent of its reenlistment goals after returning from the Middle East.

In many ways, a portrait of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is a portrait of how the all-volunteer force has changed the military. Demographically, this force has opened the military to more women and, more recently, it has seen a drop in the overrepresentation of blacks. But significantly, it has also created a professional force capable of greater sophistication - partly because everyone wants to be there.

"None of us entered this machine without knowing in our heart of hearts that we may have to go to war," writes Capt. Christopher Connors in an e-mail from Afghanistan. "That is why it is the Army, not the Boy Scouts."

The result is a military that - despite incidents like Abu Ghraib - is more disciplined than those of the past, say analysts. Since the beginning of the war on terror, there have been only two cases of "fragging" - killing an officer - compared with hundreds during Vietnam, says Dr. Ender.

Moreover, soldiers have been able to reprogram their skills to the task required, whether it's fighting insurgents or collecting trash.

"The American soldier of today is more adaptable than the American soldier of the past, in part because America is requiring them to be so," says David Segal, a sociologist at the University of Maryland in College Park.

The American soldier of today is also older and more likely to have a spouse and children than those who fought in the past, particularly in Vietnam. Never before has the military relied so heavily on the National Guard and Reserves, which comprise many older soldiers who join after leaving active duty.

"This military is more deeply embedded in the communities from which it is coming than the one in Vietnam," says Dr. Segal. "More family members are left behind. Employers are losing their workers; communities are losing their soccer coaches."

Yet the trend has shaped the Army as much as it has the communities left behind. Captain Connors saw it firsthand during a stint in Iraq, where the father of two was supporting a National Guard unit.

"The Iraqi people around the Forward Operation Base used to say that these 'soldiers are different than the other ones,' " he writes. "Many [members of the Guard unit] had jobs where they had constant contact with a civilian population, allowing them to learn techniques that did not involve direct confrontation."

To Master Sgt. Lanie Ray Vickers, a reservist, experience also brings a different perspective. Sergeant Vickers served one tour in Vietnam as a draftee and is now in Iraq as a member of the 490th Civil Affairs Battalion. To him, the distinction between the draftees of Vietnam who simply wanted to finish their tour and the soldiers of this generation could not be greater.

"I've talked to many of these kids on their second tour, and they talk about, 'When I reenlist ...' " says Vickers by phone. "When you see that kind of dedication - when they know what's out there - it makes an old soldier like me proud to be an American."

Originally Posted by astralis

shek,

what felt wrong about the time we attacked (spring of 2003) was that i really did feel that it was the military running the show as far as the timeline was concerned. the pressure in fall 2002 reached an overwhelming crescendo by spring 2003 because military commanders wanted to fight and win the war before the grueling summer heat and winter cold.

that's the wrong way to fight a war. it reminded me a tad of august 1914, when russia and germany abandoned diplomacy because the military establishment in both countries were screaming incessantly that any delay would absolutely wreak havoc on their precise timetables.

from the diplomatic side, many american diplomats and FSOs have told me that they really did feel given some more time and better diplomacy we could have gotten russia to stay neutral, germany to maybe even give some symbolic support. the extent to which we were rushed (and american diplomacy was bungled) could be seen by turkey, of all places, denying the 4th ID space. even turkish politicians were surprised that the vote went as it did. (although you are right in that i highly doubt any amount of time could shift france )

OTOH, i didn't feel that was the biggest mistake we've made. the biggest mistake was the whole DoD-State disconnect, when rumsfeld and wolfowitz, glorying in the 21-day march to baghdad, froze out state through almost ALL the initial occupation stages and pinned their complete political hopes on ahmad chalabi being the iraqi karzai. state had done months, if not years, of post-war planning, and that was all thrown down the tubes in the feeling that "hey, by fall, we're not even going to be here."

to be sure, that was also something of a failure of state. powell should have pushed harder for state control, something he TRIED to do but could not.

I'd definitely agree that military considerations forced a March start date as opposed to something during the hot Iraqi summer. It doesn't cool again until November. However, except for Kurdistan and some other areas at altitude elsewhere, it really doesn't get "cold." Cool, yes, but not cold to the point where it really affects military ops.

As far the DoD-State disconnect, I've heard damning evidence about both sides over Phase IV. Do you have links to the post-war planning done by State? My impression from the conferences I've been to and some of the press I've read is that it was a too little, too late effort that was doomed to failure thanks to having too many plans as opposed to not having one. While that sounds counterintuitive, it stems from switching back and forth between who was going to be the lead in post-war Iraq (resulting in many plans) and thus, both sides assumed the other was working the issue and neither side developed a plan to a successful fruition. Additionally, the post-war planning was based on a best-case, or at least, one that was very rosy, as opposed to a more prudent and cautious assessment.

Lastly, the failure to appoint a robust military command in Iraq overburdened the youngest 3-star general in the US Army at the time (LTG Sanchez), spreading him thin and making him ineffective. While the creation of MNC-I and MNF-I in May '04 fixed this, this was after the insurgency had been incubated.