Soldiers, whats it really like in Iraq?

Question

I am asking the question as i would like to know what a soldiers point of view is.

The information between the media and the white house then viewed by us is not always truth and i know we all have our opinions i want to know a soldiers opinion. I mean do soldiers support the governments decision? What do they think the reason is why we're at war?

Answer 1

why must put the world in war?  

Answer 2

I'm typing this up from Iraq.

I've talked with quite a lot of the other soldiers here, and there are many different points of view on why we're here.

Some say that we're here to control the oil fields, some say the only reason we're here is to help improve the Iraqi economy, some say that its to prevent civil war.

I personally think that what we're doing here is absurd.  We're paying the Iraqis something like 300 million (or billion, I forget what I've heard) a year, while our economy at home could use some help.

I'm Army, and me and my company aren't even doing our jobs.  I signed up for communications, and I'm doing infantry work guarding constantly.  The Air Force gets taken care of, their morale is high, while a lot of Army that I talk to say that they completely hate it.

We're spending all kinds of money fixing up Iraqis that are injured, and keeping hopeless cases alive.

We have Iraqis that work on base, at a Bazaar, and we charge them absolutely nothing.  They make insane amounts of money that I wish I could make in days.  Then they go home and it all goes to the Shieks of the villages.

We have contractors doing a majority of the work that the Army could be doing, and its getting on everyone's nerves.

I work at the hospital here some weeks and I see all kinds of stuff that is extremely horrible.  Its really gotten to me, so I went to the mental health clinic.  They didn't even listen to what I was trying to tell them, and they went ahead and told me that I needed anger managment.  ANGER MANAGEMENT.  Its stress I'm trying to deal with not anger.

A lot of us here believe the exact same thing on the previous statements.

All in all, a lot of us think that its bullshit.  There are some that think its fine over here, there are some that really don't care.

We got sent through 3 months of stupid training that we never ended up using over here, which is quite a waste of money.

A lot are even afraid to kill someone.  If a hostile gets killed, the soldier that killed him goes under an intense investigation, has to go through all kinds of paperwork, all kinds of c**p.

We had a guy out here who shot a hostile.  It took 4 hours for the body baggers to get to the body and pick it up, meanwhile some locals rolled up and took the AK-47.  Now he's being prosecuted for shooting an unarmed civilian.  I can say that some things could've been done better on the soldier's part in that case, but still.

I can't really say much more, I don't want to violate operations security.

THIS IS ALL MY OPINION, backed up by the opinions of a lot of the other soldier's that I've talked with out here.

Hope that answers your question.  I'm not trying to say everything is bad, there are some nice parts, but the majority of it is bullshit.

The pay is also horrible.

Feel free to IM me with any questions, I won't say anything that could violate operations security, but I'll try to answer your questions as well s possible.

Answer 3

Babe it's h**l let the politicians take a tour out there for a change.

Answer 4

Well, I worked directly with a lot of local Iraqis when I did my tour in 2004.  The general consensus was that they appreciated us being there and were grateful that Saddam and his regime were gone.  As a soldier, you're obligated to obey the orders of those appointed over you: such as the president and others.  Going to Iraq is no exception.  Every soldier is fully aware of what they agreed to do upon joining the military and that doesn't change.  They just sometimes tend to forget their role in the whole picture.

I appreciate your outlook on the whole scenario.  It says a lot for someone's wisdom to form their opinions from multiple sources, rather than solely from the media or a radio commentary.  Our initial reasons for going to Iraq were simple, and laid out openly.  Iraq was storing many weapons that could be potentially be used attack the US.  These weapons were in the hands of a very insane, loose cannon.  We could not afford to, as a nation, allow Saddam to continue to maintain control.  He was given many political opportunities to surrender the weapons, but instead he stalled.  This is where it gets very complicated and I began to doubt our leaders.

President Bush gave Saddam ample warnings to fully comply with weapons inspectors and surrender all nuclear and chemical weapons.  What he did was (theory) stall and bought himself ample time to ship the weapons out of country.  The administration then chose to take military action, as politics had failed.  It was then left up to Secretary Rumsfeld to orchestrate an occupation of Iraq and secure the country from Saddam and his regime.  Thanks to Secretary Rumsfeld, the first year was horribly orchestrated.  The number of troops were weak and ill-equipped.  This allowed us to occupy the nation, but not secure it as well as we should have.  After that, it's just been a matter of time until the Iraqi military has been built up and trained and can sustain themselves against their own rebels.

So yes, i do believe we did the right thing by going into Iraq.  But, it could have been orchestrated much better than it really was.  I don't know about other soldiers, but I was rather insulted by Rumsfeld's comments in 2004.  Upon being questioned by a soldier on the lack of proper equipment, he responded with "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had."  I don't know about others, but I personally didn't enjoy driving the entire length of the country with nothing protecting me but a canvas door on my HMMWV (Humm-Vee for civilians)

Answer 5

it is pretty good. the meals are ok. some of the people i know have died. but the worst thing is fear. fear of and air strike. an infantry attack. talk battalions rocket lauchers mine naval attacks. we are at war because we chose to strike too soon. we are at war beacuse of terrorism and because of the oil

Answer 6

All the three purposes for the American invasion of Iraq are lost.

Answer 7

it is a h**l, I don't think soldiers like to be there, except they have to go because they have to obey orders