Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Government's Broken Promise: Extension of Troops' Stay

This week, over 10,000 soldiers received word that they won't be joining their families around the dinner table nor singing jolly carols this holiday season. They will be stuck in Iraq. This is the second time since August that the U.S. Army has extended the troopys' duty in Iraq beyond the promised year. In an attempt to control the heightened violence and the threat of civil war in Iraq, the United States will delay the departure of many soldiers while hastening the arrival of even more troops. As a result, there will be about 120,000 U.S. troops in Iraq during Christmas and New Year's.

Many of the U.S. soldiers have joined the Army, the Reserve, and etc understanding that they will be called upon the U.S. government to defend what government's notion of what is right, American, democratic, and etc. Their busy schedules are shoved aside without a moment's hesitation. However, what if the U.S. government does not keep it's end of the bargain, as it did this week?Many soldiers have had to stay in Iraq months after their initial return date. Some Reserves have been called back into battle after they have completed their required service time. Could it be that our army is just too small for this mission? If so, either the size of the army or the mission itself must be fixed immediately. If the Army continues to stretch its troops so thin and to break its promise of a safe return for the troops, our troops won't be able trust our government. Then who would volunteer to protect our country?

SOURCES: The Brunei Times, Yahoo! News

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

my husband heard that sailors on shore duty were being assigned to one year on foot service in Iraq. Thats sucks.

Anonymous said...

yeah, that is completely horrible. my friend was just sent to iraq, he is in the marines. he is SUPPOSED to be back in the spring, but we will see how that goes.

miss you hun.hope all is well