Iraq: Lessons Learned. What It Really Means To Support Our Troops

The most important lesson the United States should learn from our Iraq experience is this:

U.S. military success is dependent upon the health of our military.

When our country spends the better part of a trillion dollars per year on "defense," how is it possible that it takes two months for a soldier who has just come home from Iraq to get an appointment with a mental health professional? How is it possible that our military still re-deploys troops who are suffering from traumatic brain injuries?

Despite the commonly repeated rhetoric in our country, we are not supporting our troops and their families. When our troops agreed to join our military, they did so with the understanding that honorable service and willingness to sacrifice would be respected. They believed our military leaders who told them that our people are our most important asset. Unfortunately, their trust has been dishonored.

The preventable costs of our war in Iraq are many. Most prominent among them is the incredible rate of psychological trauma experienced by troops who have deployed there, as well as the long-term damage done to their families. Our military has been used in a cavalier manner in Iraq: our military leaders have not lived up to their commitment to lead our forces in an honorable way; our deployment policies have been abusive; the long-term damage -- in broken lives and societal ills -- will not be fully apparent for years.

Even using the Department of Defense's inadequate post-combat mental health screening techniques (basically, self reporting,) our country is already witnessing rates of combat-related psychological trauma comparable to the highest rates for Vietnam veterans.

According to the Department Of Defense's Task Force on Mental Health, which released its final report in June 2007, 49 percent of members of the Guard and Reserve are experiencing post-combat psychological problems, 38 percent of members of the Army and 31 percent of Marines.

There are numerous reasons we find ourselves in this situation, among them: a large inhospitable battlefield (nothing like the "cakewalk" conditions some predicted); an inadequate number of mental health professionals; multiple deployments of hundreds of thousands of service members, many with inadequate dwell (reset) time; much heavier use of the Guard and Reserves than expected; and the shockingly pervasive problem of stigmatizing mental health injuries within our military, despite efforts of some commanders to counter this.

As this incomplete list makes clear, there are many steps that must be taken to stop compounding the wounds of war of those who are still in our military - as well as those who are willing to join despite six plus years of combat and the considerable likelihood of combat continuing for years more. These problems are so large that they demand a broad-ranging national conversation about how to repair the damage done, as well as how to ensure that we do not put our fighting men and women in an impossibly difficult situation again.

Never again should we wage war without taking steps to prevent long-term damage to such a high percentage of our troops. If we can accomplish this, then we will truly support our troops.

This post originally appeared as part of the American Security Project's IRAQ: Lessons Learned Series. To read more posts in this series, please click here.

Comments

[NoFactsJustTruth]

Criminally pre-emptive wars DO NOT support;

OUR country,
OUR troops,
OUR troops honor,
OUR treaties,
OUR self-image,
OUR image as seen in others countries, or
OUR 'idea' of what DECENT HUMAN BEINGS are!

WHY is starting war so much easier for OUR Government than achieving EQUAL CIVIL RIGHTS FOR EVERY CITIZEN?
'THAT' also speaks volumes ...about OUR country.

[sugarmoes]

what it really means to support the troops - deploy them only when ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

iraq was not "necessary" in any way shape or form.

do that? and the rest is moot.

IMPEACHE CHENEY AND BUSH. THEN ARREST THEM. THEN PUT THEM ON TRIAL FOR WAR CRIMES AND TREASON. THEN LOCK THEM UP AND THROW AWAY THE KEY.

[Sundialsvc4]

A great deal of the money that was "spent on the military" was ... looted by the officeholders and their "business associates."

[foreffectivegovernment]

To restate mistakes of the past, bemoaning the failures of the Bush Administration, and telling a Veteran why soldiers serve their Country are no more supporting the troops than displaying the little yellow ribbon on your SUV with the motto on it.

Today's soldier joins the Army because he needs the signing bonus and the college money he gets so he can better his life. That's what the New Army does without the draft. That's just the Regular Army and doesn't go into why ex-soldiers join the National Guard to help support their families because of low wage jobs. Don't get me started on that.

Once he is called to war, he tries to survive until he can get home. You guys been listening to too much MSM B.S. and watching too many John Wayne war movies. When someone is shooting at you, you ain't thinking about God and Country, you're thinking about saving yours and your buddies' ass.

Donate money to Veteran's support groups that do what the V.A. can't afford do under this Administration, impeach Dick Cheney and George Bush so a Democratic President can stop the war, or shut-up.

THAT IS WHAT TO DO TO "SUPPORT THE TROOPS".

Sorry, but we all know what the problems are and what the solutions are and don't need to be reminded on these Blog.

[realitytrumpsbull]

I have 2 questions:
1) what percentage of 'defense' spending gets
directly absorbed into the stock market, and
2) how is it, exactly, that it takes 4-5 years
for our 'top notch', 'best trained, best equipped army in the world' to STILL not 'win' in Iraq?

I pronounce the whole thing to be a fraud, a farce, and a sham.
Spend that trillion dollars instead on becoming oil-independent. Or, better yet, don't spend anything, and just give us a decade to evolve to that point nationally. No more oil imports=big supply shortage, and we'll figure it out for ourselves, and all the foreign 'playaz' with their carbon credits can keep it 'over there' while we fix it 'over here'. Gechuu gumit donutz...

[Archie1955]

If you want to support the troops then make sure they are not in the position of being ordered to kill men, women and children. If anything can destroy a person, it's his conscience eating away at him for egregious monstrous actions taken by him on the orders of his "superiors". If fighting is necessary then let it be against enemies not against the innocent citizens of the country you have decided to invade this week.

[realist333]

All points well made - especially the second last paragraph. The Rumsfeld Pentagon had no plan for pacifying Iraq, and yet fought a constant turf war with the State Department (which did have the rudiments of a plan).
American troops should never have been made to police post-war Iraq. Iraqi police and soldiers should have done that work while the Americans went home. Disbanding the Iraqi police and armed forces was an incredible blunder on the part of Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer.
To neglect the medical needs of Iraq veterans, after leading them so hastily and poorly into harm's way, is unconscionable.

[Budh]

The young join the army to protect the country not to go to war on an adventure of world conquest with preemptive wars at the whim of a deranged commander in chief.