Two Decades of War Have Eroded the Morale of America’s Troops
By Phil Klay Veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and author of "Redeployment", The Atlantic Read bio
June 1, 2019
After nearly 17 years of war, service members have seen plenty of patriotic displays but little public debate about why they’re fighting.
South of Fallujah’s Route Fran were hundreds of insurgents who’d spent months digging trench lines, emplacing roadside bombs, barricading streets, training with their weapons, reading the Koran, and watching videos of suicide bombers to inspire them for the fight to come. North of Route Fran were the roughly 1,000 men of 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, preparing themselves for the assault. Route Fran itself was a wide, four-lane highway. On November 9, 2004, the highway was wet—it’d rained the previous day—and the sky was gray and foreboding.
“You just know that this whole company crossing this road,†marine Justin Best later told a reporter, “someone’s gonna get hit.â€
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/06/two-decades-war-have-eroded-morale-americas-troops/157364/?oref=d-river
