Local attorney praises troops, pans protesters.
By: Dick Brinster
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories on local veterans of the Afghanistan invasion or the war in Iraq.
EAST WINDSOR Citizen Matt Weingast is happy to live in a country that gives its people freedom of speech, even to say they oppose the war in Iraq.
But, as Lt. Col. Matthew S. Weingast of the U.S. Army Reserve, a veteran of two combat tours there, he wishes protesters would realize they are not being helpful by saying at the same time that they back the servicemen. To him, those positions are incompatible.
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"As an American, you want to make sure people’s voices are heard and that they can oppose things," said Mr. Weingast, who also saw action twice in Afghanistan. "But they’re just saying they support the troops so they can sleep at night and avoid the accusation that they’re the same as the Vietnam protesters."
More than anything, the 42-year-old lawyer, a township resident and father of three, wants people to have a positive impression of the commitment of troops to what he says is a worthwhile cause.
"This is about heroes doing their duty, and they deserve to be written about more than someone like me," he said, adding that he spent the third of his tours and second in Iraq commanding from headquarters.
That second tour was in 2003, 12 years after Mr. Weingast experienced combat in tanks and Humvees during reconnaissance missions during the Gulf War.
"We’re were fired on quite a bit, and there were some close calls," he said of that tour in 1991.
He says those experiences enabled him to better prepare the men he sent into combat four years ago.
"It was like a football huddle," Mr. Weingast explained. "They really had to focus in on what they needed to do."
He says he deals regularly with people he respects in the legal and business communities. But he’s somewhat in awe of the men he fought with and commanded in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he served in 2001-2002 and 2004.
"I’m a corporate lawyer and I work with Wall Street types," said Mr. Weingast, who practices at the Plainsboro office of Drinker, Biddle and Reath. "To this day, I still think the people I’m most proud to have been associated with were my own soldiers."
He also insists the people of Iraq are wrongfully portrayed by the media as being opposed to the American occupation in the post-Saddam period of insurgency and sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis.
"There’s a difference between not wanting us there and knowing we need to be there," Mr. Weingast said. "Of course they don’t want us there.
"But I guarantee you if you asked them if they want us to leave immediately, the answer would be no. They know if we leave immediately, they’re dead."
Mr. Weingast takes issue with the sort of protests that emerged during the Vietnam conflict, which ended three decades ago. Then as now, many protesters suggested that American military men died in vain.
It’s estimated that nearly 60,000 Americans lost their lives after the United States took a stand against Communism in Southeast Asia. The U.S. death toll in Iraq has climbed to more than 3,000 since the invasion began.
"First of all, they didn’t know the politics of the men who died, men who were doing their duty," he said of the antiwar faction, tapping his kitchen table as his voice rose in frustration. "None of them would say they died for nothing."
He criticizes Congress, which he says won’t in hindsight accept the responsibility of its own actions approving the invasion. And, while saying he’s not necessarily a supporter of President Bush, he backs the president’s plan to put another 20,000 troops in Iraq.
Mr. Weingast also takes issue with those who say the country should reinstitute the draft. He says reluctant warriors might be less committed to duty than those in the military by choice.
"With a draft we would have a less-competent army," he said. "If you don’t have a professional army, more people will die and America will be less secure."
Now in the role of weekend warrior and about to mark 20 years of service in May, Mr. Weingast does not take issue with continued foreign deployments, even though they created anxious moments for his family in the past.
"As a soldier you prepare yourself for it," said Mr. Weingast, a member of the regular Army for the first 10 years of his military life.
His wife, Nancy, a nurse in Germany while her husband fought in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, also had to be prepared. Sixteen years ago, information wasn’t disseminated as quickly as it is in this era of e-mails and 24-hour TV news.
She recalls being out of contact with her husband for about 48 hours at the time a cease-fire was declared.
"That was the most frightening time," she recalled. "People were calling to see if everything was OK, and it wasn’t because men were coming in to the hospital from Matt’s unit."
As it turned out, the worst injury of Mr. Weingast’s military career was to a shoulder while he was training in 2003. During his second tour in Iraq it got worse and surgery was performed at West Point in 2004.
He had continuing treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, the subject of a recent controversy concerning housing and medical care.
"My medical care was excellent and the doctors were great," he said.
And Mr. Weingast said he was saddened in 2004 to see a small group of demonstrators outside the facility, people he said could have been picketing The White House, the Capitol or The Pentagon.
"I just had this image of a solider who had lost a leg looking out the window and seeing that," he said. "These are guys who served in a combat zone and had to worry about IEDs (improvised explosive devices).
He said there was never any way to feel safe in dealing with the insurgents using those devices as both weapons and bait for ambushes.
"You’d get out to look for an IED or to treat casualties, and you’d get fired on," he said. "And then they’d run away."
Mr. Weingast recalls shipping out to Afghanistan in October of 2001 and encountering primitive conditions that made operations extremely difficult.
"Iraq has an infrastructure, but we used to call Afghanistan the wild, wild west," he said. "In Iraq, you had a power grid and concrete factories to rebuild runways and roads to bring in supplies."
He said considerable construction was necessary in Afghanistan, where supplying troops was always a major issue. And, he added, soldiers there were forced to deal with conditions that could change in just a few miles from arctic to desert.
"The men also had to deal with altitude sickness," he said. "And there were sandstorms and heat, juts like you had in Iraq."
He does not consider Afghanistan a failed mission even though Osama bin Laden remains at large 5½ years after the fall of the Twin Towers. Given the mountainous terrain and caves along the border with the Pakistani tribal area of Waziristan, he said, catching the al-Qaida leader is a daunting task.
"How are you going to supply the troops?" he said. "How are you going to treat a wounded soldier? What are you going to do if a helicopter goes a down in that area."
He pauses, then uses his favorite catchword to describe war protesters and the media he says they feed off "frustrating."
"Americans need to understand the truth, not the spin they see on television all the time," he said.
For him, it’s about supplying comfort to the enemy, especially in Iraq.
"We had a chance to talk to guys we captured" who spoke about the breakdown of public support for the war in the United States, he said. "It drives them and motivates them."
Mr. Weingast insists the soldiers fighting for democracy should not have to concern themselves with opinions of the media and protesters. He also wonders how damaging the sound bites of today would have been to morale when the Allies invaded France during World War II.
"If we had today’s environment and it was June 1944, D-Day plus five, can you imagine how the troops would have felt after four days of watching CNN?" he said.

