Apparent contradiction

[pecunium]

A couple of weeks ago the Army hit its retention goal for the year, when a SSG extended his contract.

I'm still in.

Guys looking at third, and fourth tours are staying in.

And lots of them think the whole thing a fiasco. That the deaths are, in effect, pointless, because the things we are trying to do aren't going to come to pass. Even if we thought them possible (establish a stable gov't in Iraq, which will have internal peace. I don't think many of them care, overmuch, what sort of gov't it is, so long as the chaos stops; which is a sad commentary), they don't think the time required for that (not less than five years more, and probably not less than twice that, look at Bosnia and Kosovo, there are still troops keeping them from blowing up again, and they weren't this bad when we started) is going to be afforded us.

So why do they do it? Why put it all on the line again, and again, and again.

Arms and Influence has an interesting read on it.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I think he has the gist of it. It's what you've trained for, and what you know how to do. So you keep doing it because someone has to.