Soldiers Need Clarity From the President
When the commander-in-chief speaks, the troops—and our allies—listen.
WHEN KRISTEN WELKER ASKED PRESIDENT TRUMP this weekend whether he would consider bringing American troops home from the Middle East, his answer was striking: “It costs us very little to keep them there,” he said, later adding, “But I think we’ll keep them there until such time as we have a completion. And when we have a completion, you will see things like you’ve never seen.” When asked if he considered the war with Iran a war, he begged off: “I don’t define it at all. I don’t think about it. I just do what I have to do.”
I doubt the president intended much more than quick answers to questions that annoyed him. But for military families, deployed service members, and America’s allies, comments like that land differently. They raise questions that should have been answered long ago: Is there a plan? Is there a timeline? Has a decision been made? Has anyone informed the commanders and troops whose lives will be affected as to whether they might stay or go?
Those questions took me back to the spring of 2004 in Iraq. At the time, I was serving as the deputy commander of the 1st Armored Division. Our division had been in combat for a year, and we were preparing to go home. Our soldiers and their families were already counting down the days left in the deployment. The division had already handed off our area of responsibility to the unit that would be taking over for us and we were well into the complicated process of sending troops and equipment back home—in fact more than a third of our 20,000 troops had already left Iraq.
Then the security situation deteriorated when the uprising led by Muqtada al-Sadr erupted across central and southern Iraq. Violence increased dramatically. Rumors began circulating throughout the division that our deployment might be extended. Soldiers began asking questions: Were we staying? For how long? What did this mean for families already preparing for our return? Eventually, the decision came through official channels: The division would remain in Iraq. Even the soldiers who had already returned home would have to come back. The disappointment was searing—especially from the families who were missing husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. But it was tempered by mission clarity.
The mission had changed because conditions on the ground had changed. The decision came through the chain of command. Commanders explained the operational realities. Soldiers understood the purpose, even if they didn’t like the outcome. Nobody celebrated the extension, but most accepted it because they understood why it was necessary.
Soldiers can absorb difficult news. They can endure hardship, separation, and danger far longer than most people imagine—as long as the mission is clear and they know all the sacrifice is worth it.
That’s why comments from senior leaders matter.
OVER THE LAST SEVERAL MONTHS, thousands of American service members have been deployed throughout the Middle East. Families have adjusted schedules. Deployments have been extended. Commanders have worked to maintain readiness while managing the strain that inevitably accompanies prolonged uncertainty. And as Trump and Welker discussed, thirteen of those Americans will never be coming home.
Yet after months of military activity, it remains difficult to identify the strategic end state that would allow those forces to come home. In fact, there may not be one.
The president spoke vaguely about “a completion,” but failed to answer the questions every soldier eventually asks: What are we trying to achieve? How will we know when we have achieved it? And when are we done?
Without answers to those questions, deployments begin to feel indefinite.
The president wasn’t the only member of the administration signaling that successfully concluding the don’t-call-it-a-war with Iran was not the top priority. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke at Normandy this week in a ceremony where I spoke a decade ago as the U.S. Army commander in Europe. Hegseth perfunctorily complimented the alliance relationships that made D-Day possible and that continue to underpin Western security today, and honored the few remaining 100-year-old veterans who were there to take part in the remembrance. But he primarily indulged in cinematic descriptions of combat he didn’t witness, and he warned of “different European beaches . . . stormed by different, dangerous ideologies. . . . When will European capitals do something about that invasion?”
Normandy is one of history’s greatest reminders that military success often depends on alliances built on trust, shared purpose, and strategic clarity. The soldiers who landed there in 1944 understood the objective. Allied governments understood the objective. Citizens of the allied nations understood the objective. It was the objective that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was given by the Anglo-American Combined Joint Chiefs of Staff four months prior to the invasion: “You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with the other United Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces.” There’s little ambiguity in that short mission statement.
Today, American troops and American allies deserve the same clarity.
More than twenty years after the extension of our deployment in Iraq, I still remember the dejection that swept through the division when soldiers learned they would not be going home as planned. Once commanders explain the situation and connect the decision to something that is well thought out and important, most soldiers square their shoulders and get back to work.
They accept hardship. They accept risk. They even accept a difficult extension to a tour of duty. And allies will be at their side if they are treated with respect.
That remains true today.
"Soldiers can absorb difficult news. They can endure hardship, separation, and danger far longer than most people imagine—as long as the mission is clear and they know all the sacrifice is worth it."
Conversely if there's no mission morale will suffer. I was at Ft Polk from 86-88 and the 5th ID had no mission that we knew of and morale was terrible. Could have been a case study in leadership failure. We supposedly had the highest DUI rate in the Army, highest drug bust rate in the Army, highest suicide rate in the Army, and the lowest re-enlistment rate in the Army. Had all of that going on in my unit. It was quite a shock going there after a year with the 2nd ID in Korea.
Frankly, sir, I think you gave a far too charitable recount of SECDEF's speech. It was horrific, demoralizing and un-American in its own sad ways. I would love to read a follow-on piece analyzing it.