Washington Monthly has a series of articles written by soldiers that address the question, What can Democrats do to win over military voters? The question was prompted by a Military Times poll that shows only 46% of military voters identify themselves as Republican, down from 60% three years ago. Phillip Carter’s assessment of the shift:

Democrats, once at 13 percent, have inched up to 16 percent, most Republican defectors appear to have become independents of some sort. Even the officer corps, which in 2003 favored Republicans over Democrats by a ratio of more than seven to one (the Military Times has not gathered more recent statistics), is reported to be weakening in its support for the Republican Party. After all, what they most feared would happen under a Democratic administration—that the military was being overstretched and weakened—has instead happened under a Republican one. Although many military personnel still poll conservatively on issues, they now show a deep disenchantment with the Republican Party, and this administration in particular.

Here’s the list (with bios from the front page):

One Soldier’s Story: An Introduction
by Phillip Carter - an attorney with McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP in Los Angeles, is an Iraq veteran who contributes on national security to the Washington Monthly.

Withdraw Decisively
by Ross Cohen - a former paratrooper and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. He is currently completing his master’s degree in public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

Stay and Fight
by Garth Stewart - a sophomore at Columbia University. He served in Iraq as a mortar gunner in the 3rd Infantry Division during the invasion in 2003.

Understand the War We’re In
by Andrew Exum - a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the American University of Beirut. He led a platoon of light infantry in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks and subsequently led a platoon of Army Rangers as part of special operations task forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Elect More Jim Webbs
by Clint Douglas - former staff sergeant, 20th Special Forces Group (Airborne), served in Afghanistan in 2003, after numerous deployments to Latin America.

Bash the Generals
by Melissa Tryon - a Rhodes Scholar and graduate of West Point, is a veteran of the initial ground invasion of Iraq, in which she served in the 101st Airborne Division. She is currently an associate with the Truman National Security Project and a member of the Disabled American Veterans, VoteVets, and Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Ask Americans to Serve
by Nathaniel Fick - served as a Marine Infantry officer in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is the author of the New York Times best-seller One Bullet Away.

The Bitter End
by Spencer Ackerman - a senior correspondent for the American Prospect and a national security correspondent for the Washington Monthly.

These people are all (except Ackerman, maybe) veterans, and they share a perspective we rarely hear in the chorus of political commentary and propaganda that passes for news. And they can write! They comment on the fractious relationship the Democratic party has had with the military since Viet Nam. “…if you asked any good noncommissioned officer why he votes Republican, he would simply answer, “Because Democrats are a bunch of pussies.” (Sorry, but that’s how soldiers talk.)” says Douglas.

They don’t all agree, naturally, because this war is one sorry mess. Every politician in DC, and anyone else who recognizes the need for us to get a grip on the situation should think about what they have to say. I had to resist the urge to copy and paste repeatedly, there are so many gems among these articles. However, Ackerman did say something that ties into my previous post:

In addition, with the bar for success getting increasingly lower, even small improvements feel big. “They have a new commander over there, and at least the appearance and the rhetoric of a new strategy,” says military expert Richard Kohn of the University of North Carolina. The soldiers, says Kohn, will tell themselves, “All right, this is it. This is the one last chance.” (Indeed, this is almost exactly what Smith and Miller expressed to me.)

Most important, those in the military will be the last people to believe a war is lost, even in the face of nearly impossible odds. Losing a war is almost never the fault of soldiers but, rather, the fault of policy makers and generals, but regular soldiers still feel implicated.

Choose any one. You might end up reading them all like I did.