Eli Israel is a soldier in Iraq who recently refused to participate in combat. I'm a soldier in Iraq who isn't required to engage in direct combat, but I can imagine the difficulty of that decision. In a diary written earlier by laserflight, a number of comments where made about how little sympathy should be given to him because he signed the contract himself. A number of those comments came from people who have served and people I have read and respected here, so I'm not going to claim they don't know what they're saying. I will say that they should re-examine the thoughts.
I'm not going to post the entire letter here. It's worth reading, and I'd encourage you to get it through the link above to laserflight's diary.
I don't know this soldier from Adam, but I'm inclined to give him some credit. Many have commented that he shouldn't get sympathy because he signed the contract willingly and knew that there was a chance of going to war when he signed it. I would call that an unfair statement. People, and events, change over time and there is no reason to assume that SPC Israel is less then genuine in his concerns.
I know that I'm not the only soldier who joined before the Iraq war started. I was in training during the invasion, and I watched the whole grotesque invasion unfold knowing that, because I had signed that contract in a fit of naive, courageous patriotism, I would be called to fight this most political of wars. I had joined after 9/11, but before the invasion of Iraq and have felt cheated since then. It is altogether possible that he is in the same boat.
Of course, the difference between him and me is that he is in a combat unit, I am not. I can sit in my air-conditioned building and destroy lives from a distance. I hate my job and all that it entails, but I cannot imagine actually fighting the war myself. I don't know SPC Israel personnaly, but I am familiar with his unit, and he probably spends a good amount of time on patrols, fighting for a cause he may not have joined for and that he certainly no longer believes in.
But maybe he did join after the invasion. Maybe, like so many others I know, SPC Israel joined the National Guard to help with the ridiculous costs that an education requires. Maybe he joined assuming that if the nation was at war, it must be legitimate. Maybe he got to Iraq and realized that, in fact, it wasn't legitimate. You see, it's not hard to imagine that a person could change his opinion about a thing once faced with it.
Of course, I don't see why it matters what his reasons are. He is opposed to the war. If I'm not mistaken, most people here agree with him. The invasion of Iraq was enterred into under lies and false pretenses and has beenconducted poorly ever since. Clearly, the Democrats in Congress are either unwilling or unable to change the course of the war. The people don't seem particularly concerned about the plight of soldiers deploying 2, 3, 4, or even 5 times for a year or more at a stretch with, hopefully, a year in between. If neither the Congress or the people can find the guts to do something about it, I guess it's the soldiers that have to speak up.
I can sympathize with those who wish to avoid the presedent of deserting for political reasons. That's why I haven't quite myself. But I can't agree with anyone who would see a soldier trying to end a conflict that is wrong and say, "sorry, your bad."