HAVE THE WHINERS JOINED THE ARMY?

Bob Newman

It was May 1991, and I was a platoon sergeant in a weapons platoon in a Marine infantry company. Standing in the hole in which I lived, I was dismayed that it was only May in the Kuwaiti desert, yet the temperature was well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

The merciless sun beat down upon me and my Marines, none of whom were smiling. We had been in the zone since late 1990, had done our job by helping to destroy Saddam’s army in Kuwait, and now we wanted to go home. Several times we had been given a date to get on the “freedom bird” to head back to Camp Lejeune (affectionately known to the leathernecks of the vaunted 2nd Marine Division as Swamp Legloom), but each time we had been told the date had been pushed back. Every day, more and more snakes, camel spiders and scorpions appeared in our holes to keep us company and keep us on our toes.

Terrible dust storms blew in on a regular basis. The oil smoke from hundreds of burning oil wells choked and poisoned us. The chow stunk, good training was limited, wives and girlfriends were sending letters filled with anger and frustration at our continued absence, and there was no one left to kill (legally).

Especially annoyed were some of the Marines who were being held over in the Corps past their end-of-active-service date because a “stop loss” policy had been instituted, meaning many of those who were slated to get out, were still in.

Oh, and we bitched. Oh dear, did we bitch. We bitched to each other night and day. And there was plenty to bitch about, too. It is a Marine’s God-given right to bitch, and it’s been said many times that a Marine is not truly happy unless he has something to bitch about.

Marines bitched on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas during the Revolutionary War. Marines bitched during the Boxer Rebellion in China. Marines bitched on Iwo Jima. Marines bitched at the Chosin Reservoir. Marines bitched in Khe Sanh.

But two things Marines never do are bitch about fighting a war (they live for that) and bitch to the press. We keep our bitching to ourselves. Bitching to anyone else is unprofessional. Besides, what we bitch about is no one’s business but our own.

Author David Hackworth, a retired Army officer who was a 15-year-old soldier in World War II, writes in a recent column about how many soldiers, even the legendary Green Berets, have been bitching to him about everything under the sun.

This whining to the press is a very troubling development and tells me that some soldiers are now made from a different bolt of cloth than those who came before them. I have served with Green Berets and can assure you that the very idea of a Special Forces NCO (non-commissioned officer) crying like a little sissy-boy to the media because he’s hot or he’s cold or he misses his family was unthinkable back in the proverbial day.

Unit morale problems are always an indication of a leadership failure. If what Hackworth says is true and Green Berets are crying to him, the Army needs to determine which units are suffering from poor leadership and move to fix that problem before it spreads like the malicious virus it is.

In the interim, suck it up, soldier, lest the ghost of Patton slap you up-side your head.

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Bob Newman, a retired, decorated US Marine, is co-host of "Redmond & Newman" on 630 KHOW in Denver, and is the military science and terrorism columnist for The Denver Daily News.
bobnewman@clearchannel.com