| Posted by fluffy ® , Oct 02,2003,13:13 | MetroBlab |
"in recent months, the GOP and the Bush White House have suddenly faced a new, increasingly chilly reception from men and women in uniform. There are the growing ranks of retired generals who have turned Bush critics, like Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of the U.S. Central Command and a special envoy to the Middle East. Zinni endorsed Bush in 2000, but recently during a particularly scathing public critique compared Iraq war strategy to a "brain fart" emitted from a Bush "policy wonk."
"[Bush] pats us on the back with his speeches and stabs us in the back with his actions," Charles Carter, a retired Navy senior chief petty officer, recently told a Knight-Ridder reporter. "I will vote non-Republican in a heartbeat if it continues as is."
A recent posting on a Military.com chat room bulletin board is not atypical: "It is likely a lot of Active and Retired Military who supported this President will find 'staying home' a strong option at the next election. We put our trust in President Bush and he has let us down."
Even more stinging was this first-person Army account: "For the past six months, I have been participating in what I believe to be the great modern lie: Operation Iraqi Freedom." That was published last month in the Peoria Journal Star, by a U.S. soldier named Tim Predmore serving on active duty with the 101st Airborne Division, based near Mosul in northern Iraq. (And there is this complaint of an ex-G.I. whose wife was deployed.) The harsh words from military men are especially poignant "when you consider how Bush became president by a few military absentee ballots," says retired U.S. Army Col. David Hackworth. "I suspect a huge number of those overseas ballots will not be marked Republican in 2004."
the whole article is here;
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/10/02/military/?ref=http://images.salon.com/src/ads/care2/care2_3.html