Posted By:
Catherine Moy
Permalink

The election of Barack Obama as America’s next president has many of our troops confounded. Six out of 10 active service members are worried about Obama as commander in chief, according to a Military Times poll.

“Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers, nobody has confidence in this guy as commander in chief,” said one lance corporal who asked not to be identified.

For eight years, members of the U.S. military have served under a Republican commander in chief who reflected their generally conservative views and led them to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now, the troops face change not only at the very top of the chain of command, as Obama nears his Jan. 20 inauguration, but perhaps in mission, policy and values.

Underlying much of the uncertainty is Obama’s stated 16-month timetable for pulling combat troops out of Iraq, as well as his calls to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to allow gays to serve openly in the military, according to survey responses and interviews.

“How are you going to safely pull combat troops out of Iraq?” said Air Force 1st Lt. Rachel Kleinpeter, an intelligence officer with the 100th Operations Support Squadron at RAF Mildenhall, England. “And if you’re pulling out combat troops, who are you leaving to help support what’s left? What happens if Iraq falls back into chaos? Are we going to be there in five years doing the same thing over again?”

It is no surprise that U.S. troops are leery of change. President Bush is a veteran and his father was a war hero from WWII. Bush also shows great respect for the U.S. military, where as Obama has had a difficult time giving kudoss to American troops for the relative safety inside Iraq.

This video shows troops giving Obama a cool reception. It contrasts the excitement of American troops when President Bush visited them in Iraq.

The troops are not alone in their trepidation of our president-elect.

Move America Forward just returned from Guantanamo Bay and, as I have described earlier, the hardcore terrorists live in cushy surroundings. Prisoners in American prisons would give their eye-tooth to go to Gitmo, which the media and leftists have branded as a torturous environment.

Mr. Obama wants to close gitmo - a huge mistake. If he does such a thing without going to Gitmo and visiting the prison facilities himself, he will act in a careless and dangerously uninformed way.

That is not change we can believe in.