How Iraq is NOT like Viet Nam

At 59 I remember the Viet Nam war, it was central a central theme in my life from my mid teens to my mid 20's. The draft hung over my head until 1968 when after graduation from college I volunteered for the army, not out of patriotism, to avoid a combat roll. I saw friends and relatives go to SE Asia. Most returned but not all. Some returned physically damaged and most returned mentally damaged. There was one thing we all knew however, there was a "light at the end of the tunnel". You had one tour in "Nam", one year. Unless you volunteered for a second tour that was it. That was something that kept moral up during a difficult time.

That is something today's troops don't have, no "light at the end of the tunnel". If you survive one tour of duty you know there will be another, another chance to be killed by a roadside bomb. The Washington Post has an example of this today, "I'm Not Going to Come Home": One Marine's Third Iraq Tour.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- Shaded by a towering blue spruce in Wheeler Park stands a gray granite monument that honors this city's men and women who have died in combat from the Spanish-American War to, as the memorial reads, "Iraqi Freedom."

The name of Lance Cpl. Marty G. Mortenson was etched into the stone on the eve of Armed Forces Day in May. A month earlier, on April 20, Mortenson had been killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

Just a few months before he died, Mortenson sent his mother an e-mail: I am really sorry about [forgetting] your birthday . . . I am so streesed out that it is really bring [ing] me down. . . . I have had so much on my mind . . . going off to war 4 the 3rd time isn't easy.

Mortenson was on his third tour -- his third pump, in Marine jargon -- in Iraq. He had spent his 20th, 21st and 22nd birthdays in Iraq. Before he left on his last tour, he told a friend in California: "It's like three strikes, you're out. I have a feeling I'm not going to come home."

"Three strikes and your out"--no "light at the end of the tunnel". This is on top of the hidden draft, the stop loss order. During Viet Nam you knew when you were going to get out of the military. Your ETS(Estimated Time of Separation) was set in stone--no more. With the stop loss order you can never be sure when you will get out. As someone who was in the military during Viet Nam I can imagine what a huge impact on moral this must have and I don't see how it can go on indefinitely.