First December Report From Afghanistan
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Local man reports on troop morale in Afghanistan
Sunday, December 6, 2009(Bay News 9) -- For the past five years Winter Haven native and former Green Beret Michael Yon has been covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as an independent journalist.
A couple of days ago Bay News 9 spoke with him on a Skype connection to Afghanistan.
Yon has been reporting for years that the U.S. risked losing the war there.
And until last week's announcement from President Barack Obama, he was concerned the president was ready to give up on the Afghan war."And frankly I thought he was ready to tap out. I thought he might be ready to quit, and it's clear some of the soldiers thought the same thing. He really just spent some political capital," Yon said. "It took moral courage to do that."
Yon says morale among British and U.S. troops had stayed pretty high, and now the troops there are really ready to take the fight to the enemy.
"Just in the past couple of days since I have gotten back, I have talked with quite a few," he said. "It's clear they see this troop commitment is very important. And it's clear it's bolstered their morale."
Yon says the commitment of additional troops is a signal to Afghan tribes in troubled areas they should fight on the U.S. side.
"Because the people do have to make sensible choices on whose side they are going to pick. They have to know," Yon said. "They have to think they are picking the side of the winner."
Yon says the next 18 months will be a make or break time for the war.
He believes the American people and the U.S. allies will run out of patience with the war if they don't believe victory is possible.
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Comments
http://www.thunderrun.us/2009/12/from-front-12072009.html
Thank you,
Ken
Found you again on twitter.
Be safe.
Bob
And if you'd read Michael's posts for a while you'd know that, even if we win, we're going to be there for a long, long time. Afghanistan is literally centuries behind the rest of the world.
This at the expense of our combat troops.
Mc Chrystal asked for 80,000 troops and this fluke in chief gave him much less so I'm not certain concerning the optimism I read from these posts, however, the enemy certainly must be heady with optimism since the fluke in chief afforded them not only a strategy but a pull out timeframe as well.
They will sit back, retrain and re-arm and just bide their time until we pull out.
God Bless our troops and offer them solace and safety from the enemy without and the enemy within.
their CG of the theater. morale sucks. he is now at salerno hoping to get out of there back to the sticks, but it is the same bullshit army, pick up my trash specialist, throw my coffee away troop. even some low rank rangers are not happy with the bullshit. this army has a severe nco problem and it stems from the officers. when you get out and talk to the troops you will find out the butts on the line are not happy, but the assholes at kandahar and salerno are not interested in fighting a war, they are staff. same as VN. most of his buds are looking forward to getting out, even some of your SF's too. well you you talk to the troops, you tell it like it is Mike, someone need to.
I depend on your reporting. Thanks for your good work.
"A couple of days back I had breakfast with Brigadier-Gener al Daniel Menard, who recently assumed command of Canada's 2,800 soldiers in Afghanistan, along with another few hundred American soldiers from the 1st battalion of the U.S. Army's 12th Infantry -" link
Welcome back Michael Yon. We missed you. Be safe.
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