For Troops’ Families, War Debate Not a Major Morale Issue

Jacqui Coffman lives literally in the shadow of Ft. Stewart, Ga., headquarters of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division. She can see the gates from the windows of her house.

Her husband, Maj. Ross Coffman, is gone these days, serving his third tour of duty in Iraq. Every month she gathers with other military wives to talk about what’s on their minds: kids, money, their husbands’ safety overseas.

Not once, she said, has a wife expressed concern that public support for the troops was flagging. Not when Cindy Sheehan staged her protest near President Bush’s ranch in Texas over the death of her son. Not when Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) called for a swift withdrawal of troops, setting off a firestorm on Capitol Hill last month.

With public support for the war on the wane and anxiety in Washington on the rise, lawmakers and policymakers have opened a cautious debate over one of the touchiest subjects in America: when and how to end the U.S. operation in Iraq.

In Washington, as elsewhere, the consensus seems to be that debating the war is appropriate. President Bush and members of Congress -- Republicans and Democrats -- add that the discussion should be careful not to undermine troop morale.

Where agreement ends is on how to do both at the same time -- debate the war and support the troops.

For some people, especially those with painful memories of the Vietnam era, keeping the two separate can be hard.

“In case people have forgotten, this is the same thing that happened in Vietnam,” Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), a Vietnam veteran, said during the heated House debate on Iraq last month. “Peaceniks and people in Congress and America started saying bad things about what was going on in Vietnam, and it did a terrible thing to troop morale. I just pray that our troops and their families can block this noise out.”

But Coffman said she considered words tossed around in Washington far less important than the support she feels daily for herself and her three young daughters from the community around Ft. Stewart.

That support has been so evident and unwavering that Coffman said she considered the growing debate over the war a healthy exercise in democracy.

“Everywhere you go, people thank you for your service to this country, and I think that the debate itself has not changed that support for the soldiers,” said Coffman, 37. “I think that’s the difference. When you go back to Vietnam, you were looking at the American public actually disliking the American soldier. That isn’t true anymore.”

Recent interviews with service members, their families and those who work with them suggest Coffman’s view is common.

Although opinions vary, the people most concerned with the welfare and morale of troops overseas -- their families -- don’t seem to mind if lawmakers in Washington question the war, as long as they continue to support the men and women in uniform materially and morally.

“It’s the yellow ribbons on the cars; it’s your child’s teacher and what they say about the war; it’s the discounts at local restaurants for military families,” said Joyce Wessel Raezer, an official with the National Military Family Assn. “You need communities to wrap their arms around these families.”

As for the soldiers themselves, they say they focus on their unit and their mission.

To suggest that soldiers are demoralized by public discourse is to misunderstand their training, said Army Capt. Jeremy Broussard, 28, who helped provide fire support to Marines and special operations troops in Iraq.

Soldiers are responsible for tactical goals -- securing a location or controlling a district. The broader strategic goals are the responsibility of the White House and the Pentagon -- and those, Broussard said, are what critics question.

“The soldiers and Marines are still accomplishing their tactical goals. If there is a problem with the strategic goals, that’s not the fault of the soldiers, and they know that,” Broussard said.

He added: “Soldiers are not distracted or losing their lives because of what’s in the opinion polls.”

Still, dissonance between a soldier’s personal experience and the national discussion can affect morale on the margins, retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Randall L. Rigby said.

“We have a group of soldiers now who are event-oriented. They get the school built and 400 kids have a place to go -- well, that’s all they see,” Rigby said. “They don’t look at the fact that [bombings by insurgents] are up fivefold.

“They come back saying the press never reports what’s good; it chips away at a feeling of accomplishment.”

But Rigby said he believed such effects were usually minimal and were usually outweighed by the importance of a national discourse on Iraq.

Former Army Staff Sgt. Marissa Sousa, 27, who served two tours in Iraq, said debate at home was hardly a pressing concern in the field.

“For soldiers on the ground ... their main objective, regardless of what the Pentagon or Bush says, is to take care of themselves and their friends,” she said. “They want that ticket home.”

Sousa said the debate over Iraq was essential.

“Questioning the war isn’t unpatriotic -- not questioning it is unpatriotic,” she said.

Raezer said that military families, especially spouses, were more likely than troops to be affected by war dissent that they hear, but that spouses “are not looking at the news; they are just trying to get themselves and their kids through the day.”

By contrast, parents of service members tend to be more engaged in public debate, Raezer said, in part because they are older, more established in their communities and less dependent on the military for their well-being.

“There’s a reason why you have parents like Cindy Sheehan out leading antiwar marches but the spouses stay in the background,” Raezer said.

Patty Saunders leads a spouse support group at Ft. Polk, La. Her husband, Army Sgt. Charles Saunders, has been in Iraq almost a year with a transportation unit.

She said the spouses had expressed no concern about debate undermining morale either at home or in the field.

“Talk is cheap. They can talk all day, and they do talk all day,” she said, referring to Congress. “As long as they never say our soldiers are doing wrong -- that they are causing more bad than good -- then it’s just another debate. It’s like the budget. You don’t pay much attention.”

One of the trickiest questions in public debate is whether calling for withdrawal risks sending a message that the sacrifices already made -- including the deaths of more than 2,000 troops -- have been in vain.

Saunders said talk of withdrawal earned spouses’ attention, but not for that reason.

“When they talk about withdrawal, my little ears perk up because that means he might be coming home,” she said. “And when they talk about sending more troops, they perk up because that means he might have to go again.”