• The military group is solidly in Bush's corner, supporting the president more strongly than the nation as a whole. Two-thirds of respondents said they approved of the president's job performance. Similar polls of the public before Saddam's capture found Bush's approval rating hovering around 50 percent.
One likely factor in that support: Military members are much more likely to identify themselves as Republicans. Recent polls show about one-third of Americans consider themselves Republicans, but 57 percent of those surveyed by Military Times identified with the GOP.
In dozens of follow-up interviews with men and women who responded to the poll, only one would go on the record with objections to the war in Iraq. Army Spc. Chris Stewart said he spent seven months in Iraq as a mortarman with the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, before he was evacuated for treatment of combat stress.
"I don't think we should lose any more people doing this," Stewart said. "The patrols aren't causing stabilization. All we are is a giant target for those people."
The poll also demonstrates a large obstacle to probing military members' opinions on controversial political issues: their hesitance to express those opinions publicly, even behind the anonymity of a poll.
About one in five Military Times Poll respondents either declined to answer questions about Bush and Iraq or said they had no opinion.
"You just don't do it," Peters said. "One of the reasons I retired when I did was I wanted to write about political issues. Expressing political opinions was just unacceptable -- and also against regulations."
"I do what I'm told," said Marine Sgt. Edward J. Leslie, a squad leader in the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment. "I don't really second-guess the president."
