Troop morale In Afghanistan plummets. Would it help if we cared?

Would it help if we cared about them? Ever wonder what it would be like for you to be doing what they have to do and then end up ignored? They come back home, turn on TV and they don't see any news about Afghanistan or Iraq other than a local soldier's body may be coming home in a few days. The only recent news on them came out when Osama was killed and President Obama was thanking the 101st Airborne along with the Seals.

We see local stories about them coming home and getting into trouble or as with the report from the Orlando Sentinel today, they are having a hard time finding work but no one really seems to care about them.

Report: Troop Morale In Afghanistan Plummets
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 19, 2011
As fighting and casualties in Afghanistan's war reached an all-time high, U.S. soldiers and Marines there reported plunging morale and the highest rates of mental health problems in five years.

The grim statistics in a new Army report released Thursday dramatize the psychological cost of a military campaign that U.S. commanders and officials say has reversed the momentum of the Taliban insurgency.

Military doctors said the findings from a battlefield survey taken last summer were no surprise given the dramatic increase in combat, which troops reported was at its most intense level since officials began doing mental health analyses in 2003.

"There are few stresses on the human psyche as extreme as the exposure to combat and seeing what war can do," Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, said at a Pentagon news conference.

Some 70 percent to 80 percent of troops surveyed for the report said they had seen a buddy killed, roughly half of soldiers and 56 percent of Marines said they'd killed an enemy fighter, and about two-thirds of troops said that a roadside bomb — the No. 1 weapon of insurgents — had gone off within 55 yards of them.

Most of those statistics were significantly higher than what troops said they experienced in the previous year in Afghanistan as well as during the 2007 surge of extra troops into the Iraq war, the report said.
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Troop Morale In Afghanistan Plummets

Well it looks like I just got my answer. It must help when they know we care about what they are doing.

Commander: Morale not flagging for 101st
By Kristin M. Hall - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday May 20, 2011 12:39:24 EDT
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — The commander of the 101st Airborne Division says he doesn’t see morale flagging among his troops.

Maj. Gen. John F. Campbell said upon his return to Fort Campbell on Friday from leading his troops in eastern Afghanistan that re-enlistment rates show the soldiers remain committed to the Army.

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Morale not flagging for 101st