Pentagon retaliates against GIs who spoke out on TV

Fallujah, Iraq -- Morale is dipping pretty low among U.S. soldiers as they stew in Iraq's broiling heat, get shot at by an increasingly hostile population and get repeated orders to extend their tours of duty.

Ask any grunt standing guard on a 115-degree day what he or she thinks of the open-ended Iraq occupation, and you'll get an earful of colorful complaints.

But going public isn't always easy, as soldiers of the Army's Second Brigade, Third Infantry Division found out after "Good Morning America" aired their complaints.

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The retaliation from Washington was swift.

CAREERS OVER FOR SOME
"It was the end of the world," said one officer Thursday. "It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers."

First lesson for the troops, it seemed: Don't ever talk to the media "on the record" -- that is, with your name attached -- unless you're giving the sort of chin-forward, everything's-great message the Pentagon loves to hear.

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After this one-two punch, it was perhaps natural that on Thursday, the same troops and officers who had been garrulous and outspoken in previous visits were quiet, and most declined to speak on the record. During a visit to Fallujah, a small city about 30 miles west of Baghdad, military officials expressed intense chagrin about the bad publicity.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/18/MN248299.DTL

please continue here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=21628&mesg_id=21628&page=

please continue here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=21628&mesg_id=21628&page=

Wonder if the other grunts will get the idea too.

to make personel statements. Get a lawyer folks.

the freedom they're supposedly fighting for? Guess the freedom is for everyone else but them. The military I'm sure is taking their orders from chimp, and we should try to take note of the names of these people and hopefully they can be re-instated when the Democrat goes to the White House. I feel sorry for the leaders of the military having to take orders from these greedy evil ones!

the freedom they're supposedly fighting for? Guess the freedom is for everyone else but them. The military I'm sure is taking their orders from chimp, and we should try to take note of the names of these people and hopefully they can be re-instated when the Democrat goes to the White House. I feel sorry for the leaders of the military having to take orders from these greedy evil ones!

Where's the freedom they're supposedly fighting for? Guess the freedom is for everyone else but them. The military I'm sure is taking their orders from chimp, and we should try to take note of the names of these people and hopefully they can be re-instated when the Democrat goes to the White House. I feel sorry for the leaders of the military having to take orders from these greedy evil ones!