Politics: Support Our Troops??!!?!

Remember how Rummy and the gang over at the five-sided monstrosity on the Potomac openly derided people when they pointed out that America's troop levels were too low for the Iraq war? How about when Army Chief Eric Shenseki was shunted aside because he pointed out we would need hundreds of thousands of troops to stay in Iraq for years?

Well, everything has come true, in spades. We were able to technically "beat" the Iraqi army with the numbers we had, but the levels were so dangerously low at times that our supply line was in peril of snapping entirely. And now we're fighting a guerrilla war and we've decided we need more men to stay longer, just as Shinseki predicted. The rub? The 3rd Infantry Division will be staying on the ground. Read the response from soldiers and their families:

"It pretty much makes me lose faith in the Army," Pfc. Jason Punyhotra of the 3rd Infantry told ABC News in Fallujah, Iraq. "I don't really believe anything they tell me. If they told me we were leaving next week, I wouldn't believe them."
[...]
Families of 3rd Infantry soldiers have been frustrated by the uncertainty. The division was among the first conventional forces to reach Baghdad during the war, and division soldiers have assumed a major role in providing stability in postwar Iraq. Thirty-seven of the division's soldiers have been killed in hostile action in Iraq.

"Don't do that to us. Don't pull on our heartstrings that way," said Julie Galloway, whose husband, Sgt. Michael Galloway, was one of the first 3rd Infantry soldiers deployed.

It is the second time the Army has backed off a tentative return date. After President Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1, many families were told by base officials to prepare for homecomings in June.

"Every time a soldier is shot and killed, it comes to mind: Is that my husband?" said Tasha Moore, whose husband, Capt. Daniel Moore, deployed in February. "I don't think the government understands what a husband or a wife or children are going through every day."

That's supporting the troops, boys.