[Vision2020] Troops: High morale, but less support for Bush, war effort

Sat Jan 7 07:53:15 PST 2006

>From the January 9, 2006 edition of the Army Times (www.armytimes.com
<http://www.armytimes.com/> ) -

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Troops sound off

Military Times Poll finds high morale, but less support for Bush, war effort

By Gordon Trowbridge

Times staff writer 

Support for President Bush and for the war in Iraq has slipped significantly
in the last year among members of the military's professional core,
according to the 2005 Military Times Poll.

Approval of the president's Iraq policy fell 9 percentage points from 2004;
a bare majority, 54 percent, now say they view his performance on Iraq as
favorable. Support for his overall performance fell 11 points, to 60
percent, among active-duty readers of the Military Times newspapers. Though
support both for Bush and for the war in Iraq remains significantly higher
than the public as a whole, the drop is likely to add further fuel to the
heated debate over Iraq policy. In 2003 and 2004, supporters of the war in
Iraq pointed to high approval ratings in the Military Times Poll as a signal
that military members were behind the president's policy.

The poll also found diminished optimism that U.S. goals in Iraq can be
accomplished, and a somewhat smaller drop in support for the decision to go
to war in 2003.

The mail survey, conducted Nov. 14 through Dec. 23, is the third annual
effort by the Military Times to measure the opinions of the active-duty
military on political and morale issues. The results should not be read as
representative of the military as a whole; the survey's respondents are on
average older, more experienced, more likely to be officers and more
career-oriented than the military population. But the numbers are among the
best measures of opinion in a difficult-to-survey population.

"The professional military seems to be lessening in its certainty about the
wisdom of the Iraq intervention and the way it has been handled," said
Richard Kohn, a professor of political science at the University of North
Carolina who studies civil-military relations. "This seems to be more and
more in keeping with changes in public views, and that's not surprising."

The survey mirrors a similar shift in U.S. public opinion over the last
year. The CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll, for example, recorded an eight-point
drop in public approval for Iraq policy, from 47 percent in November 2004 to
39 percent in December 2005.

The drops in support seen in the Military Times Poll are "real drops, but I
see them as reflecting the tone of the country," said David Segal, a
military sociologist at the University of Maryland. "People in the military
talk to folks back home. . Eventually, the military does catch up [with
public opinion]."

Other changes from '04

Opinions on the president and Iraq weren't the only shifts in the 2005 poll:

. Positive feelings about Congress, civilian and uniformed Pentagon leaders,
and the media all fell.

. Respondents also were less likely than in the past to believe other
segments of the country viewed the military favorably. In 2004, 37 percent
said civilians viewed the military very favorably; that fell to 24 percent
this year. Last year, 77 percent said politicians saw the military very or
somewhat favorably; 63 percent said so this year.

. There was somewhat more support for opening military service to openly
homosexual Americans: 59 percent said open homosexuals should not be allowed
to serve, down six points from last year.

. Opposition to the draft fell slightly, from 75 percent last year to 68
percent this year.

. Nearly two-thirds said the military is stretched too thin to be effective,
though that figure is down substantially from two years ago.

. Job satisfaction and approval of pay, health benefits, training and
equipment remain high - though in many cases, the support is less
enthusiastic than in past years, based on responses.

. For the first time in the three-year history of the poll, more than half
of respondents said they had deployed in support of the wars in Iraq or
Afghanistan.

But few of the opinoin shifts appear as significant as those on the
president.

To be sure, support for the president and his policies remains stronger in
the Military Times Poll than in surveys of the general public: The
president's approval rating is as much as 20 percentage points higher than
in the civilian population. Part of that difference is partisan: While
roughly a third of Americans describe themselves as Democrats, just 13
percent of Military Times Poll respondents do so.

In follow-up interviews, most poll respondents said they remain solidly
behind their commander in chief and his policy in Iraq.

"I think we're fortunate as a country to have someone who has the focus and
the persistence that he does because it's so easy to get sidetracked," said
Navy Cmdr. Jeff Bohler. "The ability of the president to persevere in the
face of overwhelming criticism is really impressive. It takes someone with a
spine and courage."

Many attributed the fall in support, both among the public and the military,
to a misguided lack of patience.

"We live in a society where . people want answers right away," said Air
Force Capt. Randall Carlson, a physics instructor at the Air Force Academy,
who said he approves of the president's policies. "Unfortunately with Iraq,
there are no easy answers."

'They don't report good news'

While 73 percent of respondents believe it's likely the United States will
succeed in Iraq, that's down 10 points from a year ago.

"We're losing a lot of troops. The suicide bombers are not stopping," said
Air Force Staff Sgt. Melida G. Castano. "It doesn't look promising at this
point."

But others blamed the loss in confidence on the media, which many said have
failed to report positive news in Iraq. Four of every five respondents said
they believe media reports often are inaccurate.

"They don't report the good news, and if they do, it's on the back page,"
said Marine Chief Warrant Officer 3 Michael Edmonson.

Though the number of respondents who have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan
was up 17 percentage points from a year ago, to 61 percent, that does not
seem to have significantly affected opinions on Iraq. There was no
significant difference in opinions between those who have deployed and those
who haven't, and responses from the Army and Marine Corps - the services
under the most strain in Iraq - were not much different from other services.

Kohn, the University of North Carolina researcher, said the shifting
opinions on Iraq may simply reflect shifts in the rest of the country. But
he said he believes military opinions are at least partially insulated from
civilian trends.

"The military is very capable of drawing differing judgments from the
general population," he said. "Military people think about these things with
considerable sophistication. That is also sometimes undermined by their
instinct to be loyal to the administration - any administration - to the
government and to the mission."

As in the previous two years, Military Times Poll respondents were reluctant
to express opinions, even anonymously, about the commander in chief or his
policies. About one in five refused to say whether they approved of the
president's performance on Iraq or overall.

"That's my boss," Army Lt. Col. Earnestine Beatty said in a follow-up
interview. "I can't comment."

Kohn said he worried that asking such questions of military members and
publishing the results could tarnish the military's image as a nonpartisan
institution.

The poll "tends to communicate to the American people that the military is
just like any other interest group," Kohn said. "We want the public image of
the military to be decidedly apolitical." 

How we did it

On Nov. 14, we mailed questionnaires to 6,000 people drawn at random from
our list of active-duty subscribers. Recipients were asked to mail their
answers to an independent firm that machine-tabulated the results to
guarantee anonymity. We stopped processing incoming questionnaires Dec. 23.

About 4,000 of the 6,000 people who received questionnaires turned out to be
on active duty. Of those, 1,215 responded, a 30 percent response rate. The
margin of error in the survey is plus or minus 3 percentage points at the 95
percent confidence interval, meaning there is a 95 percent probability that
results of the poll are accurate within 3 percentage points.

Those polled differ from the military as a whole in important ways. They
tend to be older, higher in rank and more career-oriented. Even so, it is
perhaps the most representative independent sample possible because of the
inherent challenges in polling servicemen and women, according to polling
experts and military sociologists.

The poll has come to be viewed by some as a barometer of the professional
career military.

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Morale is usually fairly high in a line unit.  It has alot to do with the
camaraderie among the troops, not policy directed from 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue.

Take care, Moscow.

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil
and steady dedication of a lifetime." 

--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.

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