Our soldiers in Iraq aren't heroes

4/12/2004

By ANDY ROONEY

Most of the reporting from Iraq is about death and destruction. We
don't learn much about what our soldiers in Iraq are thinking or
doing. There's no Ernie Pyle to tell us, and, if there were, the
military would make it difficult or impossible for him to let us know.
It would be interesting to have a reporter ask a group of our soldiers
in Iraq to answer five questions and see the results:

1. Do you think your country did the right thing sending you into
Iraq?

2. Are you doing what America set out to do to make Iraq a democracy,
or have we failed so badly that we should pack up and get out before
more of you are killed?

3. Do the orders you get handed down from one headquarters to another,
all far removed from the fighting, seem sensible, or do you think our
highest command is out of touch with the reality of your situation?

4. If you could have a medal or a trip home, which would you take?

5. Are you encouraged by all the talk back home about how brave you
are and how everyone supports you?

Treating soldiers fighting their war as brave heroes is an old
civilian trick designed to keep the soldiers at it. But you can be
sure our soldiers in Iraq are not all brave heroes gladly risking
their lives for us sitting comfortably back here at home.

Our soldiers in Iraq are people, young men and women, and they behave
like people - sometimes good and sometimes bad, sometimes brave,
sometimes fearful. It's disingenuous of the rest of us to encourage
them to fight this war by idolizing them.

We pin medals on their chests to keep them going. We speak of them as
if they volunteered to risk their lives to save ours, but there isn't
much voluntary about what most of them have done. A relatively small
number are professional soldiers. During the last few years, when
millions of jobs disappeared, many young people, desperate for some
income, enlisted in the Army. About 40 percent of our soldiers in Iraq
enlisted in the National Guard or the Army Reserve to pick up some
extra money and never thought they'd be called on to fight. They want
to come home.

One indication that not all soldiers in Iraq are happy warriors is the
report recently released by the Army showing that 23 of them committed
suicide there last year. This is a dismaying figure. If 22 young men
and one woman killed themselves because they couldn't take it, think
how many more are desperately unhappy but unwilling to die.

We must support our soldiers in Iraq because it's our fault they're
risking their lives there. However, we should not bestow the mantle of
heroism on all of them for simply being where we sent them. Most are
victims, not heroes.

America's intentions are honorable. I believe that, and we must find a
way of making the rest of the world believe it. We want to do the
right thing. We care about the rest of the world. President Bush's
intentions were honorable when he took us into Iraq. They were not
well thought out but honorable.

Bush's determination to make the evidence fit the action he took,
which it does not, has made things look worse. We pay lip service to
the virtues of openness and honesty, but for some reason, we too often
act as though there was a better way of handling a bad situation than
by being absolutely open and honest.