GUEST of 6:53 pm on 4 Apr: I'm afraid you're reading way too much into my remarks above. I was referring there to the general public yawn in the face of serving soldiery who are not seen by the middle classes as "people like us". In total wars, and in countries with conscription, even the middle and upper classes are implicated and involved in the fate of rank-and-file soldiers.

By the way, I think you should break cover and assume an identity here. It's not polite to trail your coat so blatantly while wearing a cloak of invisibility.

But to your point: The proportion of professional soldiers (i.e., full-time regular troops) to reservists (including National Guard, Territorials etc.) in Iraq is probably rather low by now -- a soldier can be deployed only so often in three years, after all. The vast majority of reservists are loyal, steady soldiers who paid close attention in training and do their best on the ground; however, it is also true that the stresses of Iraq-style warfare wear down reservists faster than regulars, and in a few the training is barely skin deep.

In a big campaign such as Normandy in 1944, backed by years of training and an enormous propaganda machine fuelling total support from home, inconsistencies in individual discipline and unit effectiveness disappear in the fog of war and the eventual jubilation of victory. In Iraq, as in Vietnam and Malaya and other campaigns fought by regular armies against insurgents, every incident is picked over and examined remorselessly -- as we are seeing right now.