Reply #18: Read the article everyone, how does extending their tour affect [View All]

their ability to protect themselves? If they're told they are going home by a certain date, send their personal belongings home and then are told they're staying, what is that going to do to their psyche (sp)?? Also note he told his sister not to vote for Bush, yeah Bush has the military's votes. From the article:


The 25-year-old swapped gossip with his mother about friends back home in Kirksville, Mo. They talked about the intense heat of the Baghdad summer and the college classes she was taking. Toward the end of the tour, Campbell e-mailed his mother to suggest she meet him at his base in Europe so they could see Germany and Spain together.

But a few days before he was to leave Iraq in April 2004, he e-mailed her with bad news: The Army had ordered his unit to stay for four more months.

Morale 'at an all-time low'

The extension was a shock. The soldiers in his unit had already packed and shipped their personal items to their home base in Germany. Campbell dropped plans to re-enlist, intentions based on assurances that he could be stationed in Hawaii. Now, he wrote his mother, he couldn't trust the Army to keep its word.