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| WaPo Sunday Special - Part 11 |
| 2007-02-25 |
| FORT RILEY, Kan. -- Their camouflage on, their wives carrying infants, their older children carrying flags, the soldiers of George W. Bush's surge crowded into a gymnasium for their brigade deployment ceremony, a last public viewing before they disappeared into Iraq. I warned ya, didn't I? Baghdad, long an abstraction, was now imminent. Of the 21,500 additional troops President Bush decided to send to Iraq in the coming months, about 3,500 were coming from here. "Are you frightened?" a TV reporter called out. "I'm confident," one of those soldiers replied. An enormous American flag hung on the back wall. A military band lined up in formation. "Ready to go," another soldier said. Outside, snow was coming toward this isolated place. Inside, as the bleachers filled and the doors swung closed against the cold, a 41-year-old soldier near the middle of the floor began clapping his hands in anticipation. And now waved at his wife and children. And now took his position in front of the soldiers he would soon be leading into combat. This was Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, the commander of an Army battalion called the 2-16 -- the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division. The unit has 800 soldiers, most in their late teens and deploying to Iraq for the first time under the command of a man who, in this gymnasium filled with believers, was among the biggest believers of all. "We are America," is how Kauzlarich would describe his belief a few days later, just before boarding a plane that would take him and his soldiers for a year's deployment into the center of an increasingly unpopular war. "This nation can do anything that it wants to do." Down the hill, in another part of Fort Riley, a different ceremony was underway. That one, a private memorial service, was for a 21-year-old sergeant from a different battalion who five days before was traveling through northern Iraq when a makeshift bomb detonated near his vehicle, making him one of 25 American troops to die that day in the war. The ceremony in the gym was a celebration, however, and now, from the band, came a stirring series of notes from a trumpet, followed by a moment of quiet, interrupted by a single boom of a bass drum so sudden and explosive it caused people to flinch, including some of the soldiers. Ralph Kauzlarich, who perhaps would be an American hero a year from now, or perhaps would be an American tragedy, didn't flinch, though. Instead, just for a moment, he smiled. *** What is it like to be a soldier in an unpopular war? To be part of a troop increase that the American public is overwhelmingly against, and to lead 800 soldiers into a war being described as "barbaric" and a "meat grinder" and the result of a "failed policy" and down to "the last chance" and "lost"? More pages at link. I couldn't go any further.... Every Sunday, for months on the front page, the WaPo has an anti-Bush or anti-war piece. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #5 I'm starting to wonder whether the war on terror is an 'unpopular war' or whether people are just getting tired of hearing what a mess it is. Damn I hate being in the slow group. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-02-25 12:57 |
| #4 an increasingly unpopular war I'm starting to wonder whether the war on terror is an 'unpopular war' or whether people are just getting tired of hearing what a mess it is. (Note that I'm excluding chronic BDS sufferers here from the definition of 'people'. They would hate George if he were adopting orphans and frolicking with puppies.) If your only source of info about Iraq is newpaper headlines and tv news, you know that it's a VietNamish quagmire with thousands killed each day in unstoppable sectarian violence. If it wasn't for Rantburg and similar places on the Web, none of us would have any idea what is really happening over there. Can you imagine the media ignoring chemical attacks on civilians if the IRA were the ones doing the bombing? Lefties aside, I think people are starting to realize the Islamists are a danger to the world, even if suicide bombers haven't shown up in their own neighborhoods - yet. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2007-02-25 12:18 |
| #3 Oh, this article is biased in so many ways from the first sentence right on through. Let me say, as someone who has visited Ft Riley on more than one occasion, it is not isolated unless one counts the middle of Kansas as isolated. I was able to drive right onto the post, past a barracks complex (where some of the guys were observed coming out of the barracks in their gear for an exercise), and right on up to Custer Hill and the Cavalry Museum (which was closed on the day I arrived, but some friends of mine pulled some strings and got it opened for me to tour for a couple of hours (I got most of the museum on film - it's an absolutely fascinating place). I then proceeded to catch up on "old times" with some old friends there until well on into the wee hours of the morning. They made me an honorary member of their unit. I still have the US Cavalry baseball cap (well worn and faded, but now sitting in a place of honor atop one of my book cases). Ft Riley is one of those places I recommend everyone visit if they have the opportunity. |
| Posted by: FOTSGreg 2007-02-25 10:16 |
| #2 What is it like to be a soldier in an unpopular war? I don't get the impression the war is unpopular with the soldiers. A more pertinent question might be what is it like to be a soldier protecting the freedom of such ignorant, ungrateful ex-hippies? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2007-02-25 09:33 |
| #1 George W. Bush's surge And they called it Mr. Lincoln's War too. A hundred and forty years later we remember the man, but not his critics. And there were tons of viscous critics. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-02-25 09:11 |