MSNBC.com reports that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld doesn’t understand why the families of soldiers that unexpectedly had their one-year Iraq deployment extended by four months are upset with him.
In an interview during his flight to Fairbanks, Rumsfeld said he saw no reason for the soldiers or their families to be angry with him.
“I don’t put it in that context,” he said. “These people are all volunteers. They all signed up. They all are there doing what they’re doing because they want to do it. They’re proud of what they do. They do it very, very well.”
This is an interesting point. On many levels, Rumsfeld is right – if you volunteer to be in the army, you shouldn’t be surprised when you are sent to combat zones for long periods. However, the soldiers had some expectations that are not being met.
One of them was alluded to in another part of the article, “One wife asked Rumsfeld why the 172nd was doing house-to-house searches in Baghdad instead of the kinds of combat operations they are trained to perform.” One of the expectations that our soldiers have is that they will be trained for the tasks they are given. The families are upset because they think that the risks the soldiers are taking are higher than they should be. If they have better training, then they have a higher chance of coming home in one piece.
Another problem is that people (including soldiers) expect that Rumsfeld and the President will do everything they can to save lives. They expect that body armor will be widely available and that the reasons for the conflict are legitimate.
Yes, these soldiers volunteered to risk their life. But, they did so because they thought the rest of us were promising that we would only risk their life when it was important and that we would try to minimize their risk.
Rumsfeld doesn’t understand that the soldiers’ families can see that he isn’t keeping his end of the bargain.
