Being deployed for 451 days at a time is traumatic.

Duh?

With 3,737 plus dead and 27,662 plus wounded American and not end in sight for them, who would you expect?

Bush and Cheney don't give a rats ass about the troops, their expendable and replaceable.
Except they are not being replaced, who wants to go to IRAQ and be a target for who knows who? This administration has never had any plan on getting out of IRAQ, that's why they didn't have an after the invasion plan. Because after the invasion, hell, were staying. There's oil in them there sands!
Unfortunately, for our noncoms and regular military, their fearless Generals have only worried about tacking another star on their shoulders, not what's good for the troops.
Unless the American People begin marching in the streets these idiots will stay in IRAQ until pigs fly! Oh, yea Karl already left, o.k. until the fat lady sings.

When I fist went over in 2003 morale was low. When we were told we were deploying, the hope was for at least Afghanistan (you know that silly little place where the enemy is) but we went to Iraq for the WMD's (trying not to puke now). In Kuwait getting ready to roll North we had our chemical gear everywhere we went. When we arrived at our first camp in Iraq, we were told to pack our chemical gear since we wouldn't need it. Funny, three weeks into the invasion and we were being told that their were no WMD's. Sounds like someone knew before hand. That move boosted morale in that we no longer had to worry about getting gassed but in the long term slowly ate away at our morale as we began to wonder what we were doing there and why we were never told when we would go home. A year later we went home. 9 months later we were told to deploy again. I lost a civilian police job I had been accepted for because I had to deploy again. We were so short handed that we were working at just over 2/3 capacity. Morale was at an all time low. Now I am out an unemployed while my old unit is there for a third time for no reason that is apparent to any of them.

I could have told them this. My old unit is getting ready to return for their 3rd rotation in 4 years. These families are at the breaking point and have had enough.

Sooner or later the truth HAD to come out. This is an illegal invasion, to steal the oil, and establish a base in the middle east. The Iraqu people do not like their country being occupied. We would not like it if it happened over here. The troops volunteered to p[rotect the US, not the oil barons. The hypocrites who planned this invasion (it is not a war) do not risk their lives, or any of their families lives. They just reap the profits. Give the Iraqi people what is left of their country back, and bring the troops home. They have done all they can do in a situation that is unwinnable. Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Kristol should all rot in Hell for what they have done both to Iraq and the US.

Someone needs to give Bush a hands on demonstration of the term battle fatigue.

Last week a report came out reporting the largest amount of army suicides since the first Gulf war. Many pundits quickly rushed to judgment that this is caused by the worsening relationships between soldiers being sent back to Iraq for the fourth or fifth time and loved ones. No one, perhaps because of the phenomenal job done by the republican PR machine, assumed that this was caused by the fact that these kids are over there fighting a war that they do not believe in. After all, all of the soldiers over there feel that we are doing a great job and for a good cause...right?
Ever since the first critic of the Iraq war went public, the republicans have been saying that anyone that publicly condemns the war is unpatriotic and is helping the other side with their pessimism. Our public outcry against a not thought out and mismanaged war has been refuted by those who support the war with comments like "words like that here destroy the troops morale there." Well, either we have done a really incredible job destroying the troops' morale or members of the military are echoing the sentiments back home. Despite anything that Sean Hannity or Bill Kristol will tell you, support among the military for George Bush's mishandling of this war has fallen to it's lowest level yet...(Post was too long, read the rest at http://www.crookedinc.com)

LastDay Cafe,

The troops signed up to defend the country against threats. They did not sign up to fight an illegal war and prop up a parliament that will not pass any laws. They signed up to find the ones responsible for 911. So, when you are over there fighting an illegal war and you are not fighting against, or finding the ones that attacked us, how would you feel?

Seeing that the US Military is a "volunteer" army who wanted to learn how to use a variety of weapons to kill people,how can this army have low morale,since they're now in Iraq doing what they willingly and eagerly trained to do?

Gee, I sent mail to Bush, Martinez, Nelson and the local paper about how bad morale was getting with my son over there. Months ago. He was one of the (un)lucky ones to have their original 12 month deployment extended to 15 months. It didn't help that the rumor mill there was talking about extending to 18 months. That seems to be getting squashed now. Hopefully I managed to be part of what got that expounded.

He is in the home stretch now, less than two weeks before he's back home, and then he'll be home to see us at the end of September.

His morale wasn't great the start of this year. Pretty hard to when you've had two vehicles totalled out from under you by IEDs and EFPs. But his morale (even now, just doing the things it takes to get home, no patrols) is still really low.

His brother got deployed in July, and last I heard, he was doing OK. But he knew he was going in for 15 months. Of course, he proposed to his girlfriend (who is deployed with him) as soon as they got to Kuwait. And it doesn't help that I haven't heard from him in the past four weeks.