Cross-posted at vetvoice.com
This past weekend, I attended the ball meant to commemorate our unit’s return from Iraq. This was my second homecoming ball, and since I’ve changed units since my first deployment, I couldn’t help but compare the two experiences. The balls themselves were basically the same. The same traditional toasts, the same ceremony-bound speeches and awards. But the one difference between this more recent ball and the ball after my first deployment was the policy concerning attendance. In my first unit, no one was required to come to the ball. There was certainly pressure applied to those who didn’t want to go, but no one was forced to go if they didn’t want to. The turn out was still pretty strong. For the ball I went to the other night, everyone was forced to attend.
The obvious reason why the command staff would require everyone to be at the ball is that they were afraid that not enough people would come. Virtually everyone in the unit has deployed more then once, more often then not without even getting a full year in between deployments, and morale isn’t what it could be. I was not in this unit for their last deployment, so I can’t compare morale now to morale then, but there is every reason to believe that it is lower now then it was when the unit came back from Iraq last time. Obviously, there are other factors affecting morale besides rates of deployment, and my current unit has space for improvement in most of those other areas as well, but multiple opportunities to get shot at certainly don’t raise morale.
I’ve watched for a while now as morale has sunk lower and lower in whatever unit I’ve been in at the time. And studies of deployed soldiers and marines support my impressions. One notable study, The Mental Health Advisory Team report, is a yearly study conducted by Army Medical Command that can be found here has tracked mental health factors in both the Army and the Marine Corps since OIF 1, with their 6th report having been issued in November of last year. That study shows a general decline in morale towards the very low levels not seen since just after the initial invasion.
As the chart above shows, there was some increase in soldiers reporting high individual and unit morale during OIF 04-06, but that increase has largely disapapeared with only 19% of soldiers reporting high or very high individual morale, and a mere 7% reporting high or very high unit morale. While marines seem to exhibit less frustration then soldiers, this can be largely explained by their usual 6 month deployment length, as compared with the army’s 12 to 15 month deployments.
Being forced to go to a ball much like one I attended willingly several years ago reminded me of those problems and caused me to reflect on the larger morale problem in America. It is no secret that the nation has become increasingly divided over the last several years. From a high of uncertain unity just after 9-11, the American people have grown increasingly disenchanted with a seemingly unaccountable president, an unnecessary war in Iraq, a willful ignorance from our nations highest offices concerning the situation in Afghanistan, and a legislative branch unwilling to perform their constitutional obligations. The chart below from pollster.com shows the average presidential approval rating from a number of different pollsters. (The individual trendlines can be found at their website.)
All of this is causing a morale problem in America. Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of Americans disapprove of the job being done be politicians in DC. More and more Americans see their country moving in dangerous ways. At the same time, fewer and fewer Americans view government as a place where they can make an impact. National morale is different from military morale like that. While those of us in the military can’t simply stop participating because we don’t like what’s going on, the average citizen can.
Before I say anything else, I want to make one thing exceedingly clear. I am not trying to say that we are losing the war in Iraq because of a lack of support from home. That accusation wasn’t true in Vietnam, and it’s not true now. We are losing in Iraq because the war’s aftermath wasn’t planned correctly. We are losing in Iraq because we don’t have sufficient understanding of the culture in the area. We are losing in Iraq because no one seems capable of defining what not losing means. If anything, the opposite is true. Our nation’s untenable position in Iraq is only encouraging the malaise and disenchantment of people back home.
There are of course certain individuals who, when faced with a seemingly unworkable situation choose not to stop caring. Those are the men and women who throughout history have solved the seemingly unsolvable problems. But the question is whether or not there are enough of those people. If there are not enough of them, The United States will continue down its current path until the path leads us off of a cliff. If those individuals don’t occur in high enough numbers, it won’t really matter what they do. I like to think that I am one of those people. I don’t have the answers, but I’m committed to looking for them. I hope and believe that you all feel the same.
I do believe that one person can make a difference. The problem now is that there are a lot of differences that need to be made right now. We’re going to need a lot of people. And so I believe that our number one goal right now should be recruiting more allies. Throughout history it has been true that when the people speak, the leadership is forced to listen.
There are a lot of things that need doing. An end needs to be found for our involvement in Iraq. The conflict in Afghanistan needs to be remembered. The security issues caused by our dependence on mid-east oil need to recognized and addressed. And those are just a few of the things that come to my mind. Work needs to be done on all of those fronts, and now. But we can’t let those problems cause us to forget that they will all be solved quicker with more people both stepping up to lead and agreeing to watch our backs. But numbers like that can be hard to find, especially in a climate as discouraging as the one we are currently living in.
That is why we need to fight the low morale of our country. And the way to raise a nation’s morale is not through blind, nationalistic cheerleading. We are a republican democracy, and the best way for us to encourage involvement is to remind people that involvement is an option that can work.