“What the hell is everybody doing still awake” Casey asked. The rough drawl voice of Sergeant Rich quickly interrupted any other reply “It’s Ramadan. They don’t eat all day and wait till night and then it’s a big fucking party. Now shut the fuck up and scan.” It was a nervous night as all of Khalis seemed a buzz. We were in a ditch with a briar of thick bushes almost covering us. There was an orchard behind us and a highway we called Route War Horse in front of us that entered Al Khalis. We were in place there to try to curb the increase in IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) that were being planted along the highway. Our orders as snipers were to take out any enemy elements setting up ambushes or planting road side bombs.

A typical night is a challenge to keep warm and stay awake, nothing to see but packs of dogs through the infrared and patrolling Iraqi Army pick-up trucks. The following nights we were anxious with the amount of car and foot traffic all night. Each morning when things seemed to quiet down an eerie moan would crack the chill air as call to prayer would echo through town. Like half dead zombies the Iraqis would drag themselves to the mosques to begin another day of worship.

This was the first time I thought about some sort of Iraq War equivalent to the Vietnam Tet Offensive of 1968. I wondered if the Ramadan holiday would encourage greater violence or create more peace. I pondered if the Iraqis would use the holiday for a surprise attack or maybe mark the day to attack for coordination purposes. A major offensive of that scale never came, Ramadan of 2004 came and went, and I forgot all about it until George W. Bush compared the recent violence in Iraq to the situation in the Vietnam War.

To link the 1968 Tet Offensive to the current escalation in Iraq is an outrageous claim that has very serious connotations. The US casualties during that period in the Vietnam War were far more extreme and the attacks on our troops more concentrated. It is true that the casualties are up from previous months. Today the death toll for American troops in Iraq for the first 23 days in October 2006 is 87, that is a rate of four per day. The amount of troops wounded in September was 776, while just in January we only had 289 wounded and it has been a steady climb since.

American forces saw far more casualties during the November 2004 period when the second major battle in Fallujah occurred. I was in Baqubah Iraq during the attack on the city and at one point I was asked if my team and I wanted to volunteer to go with the tank companies from our battalion. I was glad afterwards that we declined. American forces experienced 137 Killed in Action and 1400 Wounded in Action. However, America was the aggressor in the clash, it was conducted post US Presidential Election, so as not to hinder George W. Bush’s re-election, and it was well after the Ramadan holiday.

Ramadan is the most venerated month of the Islamic year. It is a time to stress prayer, fasting, charity, reading the Quran and self accountability. A Muslim is expected to refrain from decadence and impure practices. Since it is set off the lunar calendar Ramadan is celebrated between the end of September to the end of October.

The Vietnamese Tet holiday, Tet Nguyen Dan, is also set on the lunar cycle. It represents a new year and although only one day is celebrated the festivities can last a longer duration. The 1968 Tet Offensive lasted from January 30th, 1968 to June 8th, 1969. During that time 1,526 US service members were killed and 7,764 wounded. I hope that this October isn’t the beginning of a repeat pattern. It would be nice that US forces don’t have to suffer those kinds of casualties before we realize a serious change in policy is needed in Iraq.

I don’t see this Tet Offensive analogy to be accurate. I see Vietnam 1966 more fitting. In the first four years of the Vietnam War, between 1961 and 1965, 1,864 US troops were killed. In 1966 there were 5,008 KIA for that year alone. By 1968 we were losing over 14,000 soldiers a year. That is an immediate spike in escalation. We currently have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq. In 1968 we had 400,000 in Vietnam, a country far smaller than Iraq in size and population. It shows how fast the situation can deteriorate into a broader and more intense conflict.

Also, to compare the political environment now and then is dramatically different. The Tet Offensive was considered the turning point in the Vietnam War because American citizen’s opinion on the war turned and the popularity of President Lyndon Johnson fell sharply causing him to drop his Presidential candidacy. However 70% of Americans are opposed to the current war in Iraq already and Bush’s popularity struggles to rise above a 25%, and we are still two years from a Presidential election. I already hear Republicans complaining that the insurgency is playing on the Democrats to back out of the war. And, the increase in violence is a terrorist propaganda push that only works on the cowardly and pessimistic.

If we could learn from the past we can see that the war in Iraq will escalate out of our control and even if we double the amount of soldiers we send there it will be too little too late. Comparatively 10% of our soldiers in Iraq die from their wounds as opposed to Vietnam where 24% were killed by similar injuries. Due to today’s protective gear and vehicles combined with medical technology, training, and transportation, soldiers survive wounds that in the Vietnam War era would have killed them. If we had the same equipment and medicine today as in Vietnam we would be looking at over 6,000 dead American troops. That would make 1968 Tet Offensive scenario year in Iraq, a 30,000 plus KIA situation for US troops.

If that is the road we are headed down than we must take a long look at whether or not the cost of “staying the course” is worth the price. We have to ask ourselves as a nation if we are doing right by our troops by sending them into an escalating war over and over again? Who is going to serve if there is an increase in military operations in the Middle-East now that the all volunteer military is broken? How will we pay for the sky rocketing costs of this conflict now that our national debt is at the highest levels ever? Will we have the money to responsibly take care of the veterans that return from this war?

As we lay in our ditch trying to hide our breath vapor another group of Iraqis pass close by our hide and there is celebratory fire in town that makes us tighten up with a cringe. Tracers arc into the starry sky. When the Iraqis get a safe distance away Casey whispers “When the hell are we going home?” We all sit silently. Nobody can give him an answer.