I don’t envy one bit the members of the U.S. military stationed in Iraq. It’s got to be a nasty job, 24/7, with the imminent danger of, well, death a pervasive reality, and that despite “mission accomplished” and all. No surprise, then, that morale is fading fast.

Here’s an excerpt from a report by the Knight-Ridder News Service published in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer (“Marooned Soldiers: ‘Our Morale is Gone’,” by Tom Lasseter and Drew Brown):

Said one Second Brigade officer, who asked not to be identified: “It doesn’t seem like anybody higher up cares to realize what these soldiers have been through, or what they’re going through on a daily basis. I can guarantee you they’ve never stood out in a checkpoint in the heat of the day, day after day, full battle rattle, always wondering if today’s the day somebody’s going to shoot me. Do they even care?”

Do they care? I’m willing to concede they, meaning our resident war hawks, care. They care that American soldiers are “projecting force” abroad, making the Middle East safe for Halliburton and Likud. They feel great about that. Those guys live -- and soldiers like the one quoted above die -- for that stuff.

But care care? I doubt it.

As for the “man on the street,” he and his limited attention span have moved on. This is summer! There are all sorts of crappy new summer series on TV.

Meanwhile, Kenneth “Cakewalk” Adelman this morning was seen taking names and calling his pals in the Pentagon and Andrew Sullivan, blogging from the beach, is reportedly preparing a post in which he tells worried servicemen and women to shut up and do their jobs.

[Post-publication addendum: SullyWatch, by the way, reports, perhaps without realizing it, that the PofP is once again blogging while high.]