An Army of dissent

Cadets wrestle with handling of Iraq war

BY CRAIG GORDON | Newsday Washington Bureau

April 30, 2006

A group of West Point cadets make their way to the mess hall. (Newsday / Alan Raia / April 24, 2006)

WEST POINT, N.Y. - From an upstate town swallowed by grief on 9/11, she came here, looking to do her part. For soon-to-be-2nd Lt. Jill Rahon, some of those gung-ho feelings have faded a bit after four hard years, but not the sense of wanting to see the job done right in Iraq.

Some West Point grads she knows went to Iraq already. Some aren't coming home. The school announces their deaths over the PA system at lunch in cavernous Washington Hall, silencing 4,000 cadets at once with the regret-to-inform-you news they've come to dread.

So for Rahon and fellow cadets, the recent bitter debate between six retired generals and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is all too real.

In classroom lectures and barracks bull sessions, the next generation of Army leaders is wrestling with an earlier generation's public attack on the defense secretary at a time of war.

And at least some members about to join the Long Gray Line aren't shy about breaking ranks with Rumsfeld.

Rahon and others agreed with the generals that the United States probably should have sent more troops into Iraq - a move Rumsfeld opposed - and some questioned why the Pentagon didn't anticipate the insurgency that has bedeviled U.S. forces.

Rumsfeld should stay

To be sure, none of the more than a half-dozen cadets interviewed last week said Rumsfeld should resign, as the generals have. Several saved their sharpest tones for the ex-generals, accusing them of carping from the sidelines instead of fixing the war plan while still in uniform.

But at least among some cadets here, there also is a feeling that it's time that Rumsfeld himself took some heat as the death toll rises.

"I know once those generals came out, there were cadets going, 'Yeah, stick it to him,'" said Rahon, of Washingtonville, a town more than 60 miles from Ground Zero that lost several city firefighters and others on 9/11. "I think they thought he handled the war poorly or handled going in in the first place [poorly]."

'Admit you were wrong'

One cadet said he felt Rumsfeld should apologize to the American people over the flawed rationale for the war, the weapons of mass destruction never found.

"We question his judgment, but as a soldier, we can't stand up and say anything. We have to follow it," said this cadet, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "A lot of people say, 'All we want is an apology - just admit you were wrong and move on,' but it hasn't happened."

Now Rahon shares a larger worry of the generals, that the United States risks taking its eye off the broader war on terror in its involvement in Iraq.To some extent, Rahon said, that's all looking backward instead of focusing on what's important now - how to deal with the problems in Iraq and bring the troops home.

"I'm really one for trying to fix it as much as we can and then get out," said Rahon, 21. "I just hope we can get the war done efficiently, do a good job - and not create any more terrorists."

The cadets graduating May 27 are the first pure post-9/11 class at West Point. All started in the summer of 2002 after the attacks had already happened, and many said that only encouraged them to come.

Four years later, they are no less eager to serve but also are clear-eyed and unsentimental about duty in Iraq, sobered by the fact that as 2nd lieutenants they could soon be leading 30 to 40 soldiers into battle.

"That's what we eat, breathe, sleep - you know you're going into the fight, so you prepare your mind for that," said Cadet Matt Pratt, 22, of Lawton, Okla., who expects to be a 1st Infantry Division armor officer.

West Point's fortress-like campus drips with 200 years of military tradition but these are 21st-century soldiers, just as likely to get the scoop on Iraq by instant-messaging buddies at the front as from any presidential speech.

Cadets talk about Iraq in class, meet generals and lieutenants who've been there, study roadside bombs and Vietnam. Professors say they encourage the students to reach their own conclusions, to better arm them for the day when that scared and homesick 18-year-old private asks them, "Why are we here?"