Honestly, even serving in another Iraqistan isn't really all that bad from the individual soldier's point of view, compared to what soldiers might experience in other wars. The death rate is quite low, even the casualty rate is pretty low (seriously, at least 1.5 million troop-years, resulting in fifty thousand total wounded, sixteen thousand severely wounded, 6800 or so dead).Elheru Aran wrote:Well, at least until the US gets involved in another dust-up. We are still in Afghanistan. As long as we stay Democratic though, I'd give it about a decade or so... hopefully... provided Iran or the Norks or someone (and I include the US in that sweeping generalization) don't do anything stupid...Thanas wrote:And there is also a good chance you end up in rear duty and not in a postcolonial shithole where you do France's dirty work before getting killed somewhere nobody cares about.
If you go in convinced the war is for absolutely nothing I suppose it's damned demoralizing, though many of the soldiers actually present seem to feel otherwise. If I had to choose between Iraq and Vietnam I'd take Iraq in a heartbeat. Likewise if I had to choose between Iraq and marching with the Legion into, oh, Chad or Mali.