“Supporting the troops” means longer combat duty?

A retired Army general identifies the length of service being demanded of soldiers in Iraq.

"Supporting the Troops" Means Withdrawing Them, by William E. Odom, Nieman Watchdog. . . . Every step the Democrats in Congress have taken to force the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq has failed. Time and again, President Bush beats them into submission with charges of failing to "support the troops."
Why do the Democrats allow this to happen? Because they let the president define what "supporting the troops" means. His definition is brutally misleading. Consider what his policies are doing to the troops.
No U.S. forces have ever been compelled to stay in sustained combat conditions for as long as the Army units have in Iraq. In World War II, soldiers were considered combat-exhausted after about 180 days in the line. They were withdrawn for rest periods. Moreover, for weeks at a time, large sectors of the front were quiet, giving them time for both physical and psychological rehabilitation. During some periods of the Korean War, units had to fight steadily for fairly long periods but not for a year at a time. In Vietnam, tours were one year in length, and combat was intermittent with significant break periods.
In Iraq, combat units take over an area of operations and patrol it daily, making soldiers face the prospect of death from an IED or small arms fire or mortar fire several hours each day. Day in and day out for a full year, with only a single two-week break, they confront the prospect of death, losing limbs or eyes, or suffering other serious wounds. . . .

How to re-frame the “supporting the troops” meme? The media will only give the opponents 10 words or less. The headline writers need the whole idea to be captured in two or three words.

• Democrats should start by identifying it literally as “a propaganda ploy: trying to create the false impression that re-deploying the troops out of Iraq would mean depriving them of the weapons needed to protect themselves. That’s ridiculous, and President Bush knows it.”
• "Bush seems to think ‘supporting the troops’ means forcing them to tough it out through hazardous combat duty for longer than soldiers in World War II, the Korean War or the Vietnam War – more than ever required in the history of American wars (says Odom). Now it’s 15 months, with the risk of death or permanent maiming almost every single day. In World War II, combat duty was allowed only for 180 days, and there were long stretches with neither active combat nor the risk of snipers or IEDs.”
• In a more positive frame, supporting the troops is putting them where they can do some good; putting them where they are no longer a hated occupying force that fuels a rebellion just by being there, but can once again be ready to help wherever they are really needed. (For any National Guard troops still doing Iraq duty, that means bringing them home right now.)
• “We aren’t losing the war, Bush lost his fantasy – that he could make a country halfway around the world with a vastly different culture and a different language few of us can understand into the country he wanted it to be. Our troops won the war they were trained for. They have never been supermen who could be soldiers, policemen, teachers and hand-holders at the same time.”
• "Keeping our military strong."