<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Courtesy of the Army Times at:</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; "><a href="http://www.armytimes.com/interactive/article/20130911/NEWS/309110009">http://www.armytimes.com/interactive/article/20130911/NEWS/309110009</a></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; "> </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">--------------------------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><h1 style="font-size: 30px; padding-bottom: 8px; margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: left; ">Troops oppose strikes on Syria by 3-1 margin</h1></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">To the list of skeptics who question the need for air strikes against Syria, add an another unlikely group — many U.S. troops.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I haven’t heard one single person be supportive of it,” said an Army staff sergeant at Fort Hood who asked not to be identified by name.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A Military Times survey of more than 750 active-duty troops this week found service members oppose military action in Syria by a margin of about three to one.</span></p></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The survey conducted online Monday and Tuesday found that about 75 percent of troops are not in favor of air strikes in response to reports that the Syrian government used chemical weapons to kill civilians in that country.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A higher percentage of troops, about 80 percent, say they do not believe getting involved in the two-year-old civil war is in the U.S. national interest.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The results suggest that opposition inside the military may be more intense than among the U.S. population at large. About 64 percent of Americans oppose air strikes, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll published Monday.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Military Times survey is an unscientific sampling of Military Times readers and reflects the views of many career enlisted members and officers.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For many troops, money is a key consideration. Troops question the cost of bombing Syria at a time when budget cuts are shrinking their pay raises, putting their benefits package at risk and forcing some of their friends to separate involuntarily.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“We don’t have money for anything else but we have a couple hundred million dollars to lob some Tomahawks and mount an expensive campaign in Syria?” said Army Sgt. 1st Class Chris Larue, a 39-year-old maintenance expert at Fort Eustis, Va., referring to the precision-guided missiles that are likely to be used in any strike.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The debate about striking Syria is also revealing a strain of isolationism growing inside a battle-weary military that has spent more than a decade supporting high-tempo war operations overseas.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“People are just sick of it,” said Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Harvey, a nuclear-trained officer who works at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“It’s like the old pre-World War II isolationism, I hear grumblings of that. People would rather withdraw all our troops and let the rest of the world figure out what to do. I think there is a lot of credence to that argument.”</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Among troops who do favor mounting strikes against Syria, moral and humanitarian concerns are a top consideration.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“It’s a moral issue. If we’re we are going to set ourselves up as the moral leaders in the world, then we have to act,” said Air Force Master Sgt. Noel Cumberland at Davis Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Army Staff Sgt. Derek Harris agreed. “I’m not talking about it from a national security standpoint or a political standpoint. I’m talking about human rights,” Harris said.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Harris also said he is undaunted by the prospect of U.S. military involvement escalating beyond air strikes and requiring the Army to deploy ground troops.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“It doesn’t worry me. It’s not that I welcome it, but I definitely wouldn’t mind getting back to work,” he said.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Many troops have concerns about the strategic logic of striking the Syrian regime and implicitly helping the rebels where, which include some extremist groups linked to militants in Iraq who were killing U.S. troops just a few years ago.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“In my eyes, the rebels in Syria are the same as the insurgents in Iraq,” the staff sergeant from Fort Hood said.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Yet for now, he said he is benefiting from the uncertainty hanging over the U.S. military.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">He said he’s facing administrative separation for repeatedly failing to meet the Army’s weight standards. But for now, that is on hold as his commanders brace for the possibility of a spike in operational tempo.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“They put a stop on my paperwork. They were, like, ‘Well, were going to keep you just to see what happens, in case there’s going to be deployments.’ ”</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; "><img src="cid:02D99BEA-1053-49DD-A806-1A7679D5DD64" alt="image.jpeg" id="02D99BEA-1053-49DD-A806-1A7679D5DD64" width="640" height="338"></p></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">--------------------------------------<br><br><div>Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</div><div><br></div><div>"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)</div><div><a href="http://www.MoscowCares.com">http://www.MoscowCares.com</a></div><div> </div><div><div>Tom Hansen</div><div>Moscow, Idaho</div><div><br></div><div>"<span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">There's room at the top they are telling you still</span><span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">But first you must learn how to smile as you kill </span><br style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">If you want to be like the folks on the hill."</span></div><div><font size="3"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469);"><br></span></font></div><div><font size="3"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469);">- John Lennon<br></span></font><div> </div></div></div></body></html>