Recently there have been a number of stories out of Afghanistan that have troubled me as both an American and retired Army officer. Any one of these stories would be enough to affect my morale and I believe they are doing just that with our troops.

Soldiers have a sixth sense about good leadership. Leadership is key to morale. When I was commanding units in Europe and the United States you made sure your troops and their families were taken care of. You made sure you fed them, equipped them for the mission and got them simple things like their mail. Commanders who failed in any one of these areas would negatively impact morale, especially on the battlefield. Hardships, danger and even death do not impact morale more than poor leadership and a soldier's sense that his chain-of-command is not taking care of him and his family back home.

Let me talk about three leadership issues that, I believe, are hurting the morale of our troops.

The first is the wavering by President Obama on surging more troops to Afghanistan. This wavering, after receiving the report from General Stanley McChrystal in August, sends a signal of a lack of resolve on the part of the Commander-in-Chief. President Obama has consistently and repeatedly stated Afghanistan is a "necessary war" and a "war worth fighting". The White House says that the President is simply taking his time to make perhaps the most important decision of a wartime President, to put more young Americans at risk in combat in a foreign land. I agree with this up to a point. That point has long passed. President Obama has all the council he needs, it is decision time. No decision is almost as bad as a half-hearted decision. General McChrystal, President Obama's hand picked U.S./NATO Commander in Afghanistan, has requested up to 60,000 more troops to win the counter insurgency. I believe General McChrystal needs must be met or the war is lost. I ask a question that many asked when I was in Vietnam: Do you want to be the last soldier to leave Afghanistan?

The second issue that I have written about is the current standing order from General McChrystal that no civilians be harmed or killed. This standing order may have led to  the deaths of Afghan Army soldiers and Marines when their supporting fire requests were repeatedly denied while they were in direct contact with the enemy.

McClatchy's Jonathan S. Landay, was embedded with the Afghan Army and Marines who were ambushed in Ganjgal, Afghanistan. Jonathan is a veteran foreign affairs reporter with long experience in South Asia, Iraq, and the Balkans. Here is why these allied forces died according to Jonathan:

“U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren't near the village. “[Emphasis added]

I was a forward observer for most of my tour in Vietnam during TET of 1968. I never had anyone question me or my infantry company commander's request for supporting fire when in direct contact with the enemy. I believe this incident has negatively impacted the morale of our soldiers. When our leadership puts a higher value on the lives of others, even civilians, than our soldiers and our allies there is a serious morale problem.

Finally, we have the recurring issue with our basic infantry weapon, the M4 Carbine, malfunctioning while in contact with the enemy. The M4 Carbine has been in service for over forty years. It began its life when I was in Vietnam as the M16 rifle. Since its inception it has been fraught with design flaws. Congress, this and previous administrations have known about these flaws as pointed out in a recent articles in Defense Industry Daily and Military.com. The weapon is sensitive to the environment, requires constant maintenance and recently was again found to be unreliable under combat situations requiring high rates of automatic fire. According to CBS News:

In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.

When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.

Click here for an exclusive report on the Wanat battle by CBS News national security correspondent David Martin for the Special Report on Afghanistan: The Road Ahead.

Any one of these leadership issues can and will negatively impact troop morale. The TimesOnline reports:

American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned, according to the chaplains of two US battalions that have spent nine months on the front line in the war against the Taleban...

Sergeant Christopher Hughes, 37, from Detroit, has lost six colleagues and survived two roadside bombs. Asked if the mission was worthwhile, he replied: “If I knew exactly what the mission was, probably so, but I don’t.”

The only soldiers who thought it was going well “work in an office, not on the ground”. In his opinion “the whole country is going to s***”.

In Afghanistan Army Captain Sam Rico offered a particularly apposite reading from Corinthians: “We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Our President, our military field commanders and our troops all need our prayers and full support. Losing in Afghanistan is not an option. The sooner we all understand that the better for morale.