The military made a conscious decision, under the civilians in control, to NOT expand the Army much. Expanding it enough to handle the demand would have required money, and it would have signaled that we would be there a long time.
During my tour in Afghanistan at 49 (in 2007), I was serving with guys who were on their third & fourth rotation. That was obscene. But GWB didn’t want America to be disturbed from its comfortable lifestyle...
Your explanation helps me to make a little more sense of those times. What you say has an unfortunate sort of logic, if you take the Rove/ Rumsfeld perspective. I guess style ruled over once substance again, just like last November.
Military.com
“Contrary to popular belief, recruiting offices didn’t fill up after 9/11 like they did after the attack on Pearl Harbor. A modest rise in enlistments followed 9/11, but that increase quickly dissipated as the nation got caught up in two grinding wars.
By 2006, the services were missing recruiting goals. They began lowering standards and offering enlistment bonuses to draw volunteers. In 2003, 94 percent of Army active-duty recruits had high school degrees. Four years later that number had fallen to 82 percent, according to the Army Recruiting Command.”