Tag: troop stress

An Ill Wind Blows Our Way?

Having one of those days.  Going to put my fears up and then maybe they won’t be swimming around my head today.  This is an accumulation of a month of starting to smell that smell again.  It started last month when a soldier friend shot an email out to friends that in the midst of Iraq and a group of officers he witnessed a full bird Colonel and a one star General come to blows and try to beat the hell out of each other.  He gave no names and at the time I didn’t really want any.  His email was just one of those holy shit things that we all send out when we have witnessed the impossible happening around us.  There was only one thing that I filed away from the email as a note to self and that was that there was infighting before David Petraeus cuz there was no fuggin plan.  Everybody was their own cowboy in the Wild West.  To have such a physical fists to faces fight take place post David Petraeus disturbed the little voice in my head.

The second thing that disturbed me and joined that voice was this comment yesterday.  That was finished up today by my husband phoning me and asking me to search the net for a war video he had seen part of yesterday that had an Apache helicopter taking out an insurgent car in Iraq but also taking out about three other cars with it on a highway.  I didn’t have the heart to look very hard for it today.  I heard the concern in my husband’s voice.  It was concern about when this happened because this can’t be our ROE under the Petraeus plan and have that plan have any hope at all.  We can’t just create that kind of damage at will and have anyone able to feel any sort of sense of security of any kind.  My husband’s too smart too for his own good.  I know there is more behind his concern than just seeing the last half of a video.  He’s picking up a vibe out there and the surge is going to be a year old soon and how long can these people keep this up before everyone is certifiable?