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First thing. How long did you serve in the military?

Next, Travel for business and travel for military are two completely different animals. What class did you travel in? Military airlines are not comfortable, don't have stewards/stewardesses and don't have any luxuries as commercial aircraft do. The one thing military transport is designed to do is get you from point A to point B. What kind of fighting shape are forces who fly 8,000+ miles going to be in when they land?

Additionally, just an american presence in a country is often a deterrent from a country being attacked. Say we had 2,000 (that's quite a small number) troops in Kuwait in 1990, do you really think that Hussein would have done what he had done, knowing that the death of even one american would have been a blank check for America to completely obiliterate him then and there? Many people were detached from that as "It's just the Kuwaitis" If it had been americans do you think it would have escalated quicker if not immediately? The numbers you refer to are not major... 100,000 troops in Europe... How many men are on a single aircraft carrier?

As for most of the Iraq deployments coming from the U.S., I'll have to make a comment about that. Ask the 173rd out of Vicenza, Italy, who air dropped into Northern Iraq. Ask the 31st FW coming from Aviano, Italy, throw in the batallions coming from Germany, the aircraft out of England and all the prepositioned forces that came out of Saudi Arabia. Also throw into the mix that someone still has to stay behind and maintain the bases/posts that are undermanned and "poof!" you have a magic number of people needed...

Or not...

How about the support bases that provide the munitions, supplies, communications etc ... do we really want to keep all our bombs in one place? I'm sure that would make a really pretty picture if someone managed to over-run it or bomb it I think not. Well, wait, we've got to throw in the communications for those places too... Do we want to radiate everyone on this base while we're at it? Hmmmm might want to put those someplace else too. The more support a base requires the more PEOPLE that base requires. So say you have 2 major bases used for transient travel. Who maintains the runways, and the lighting and the communications and the fuel and everything else that goes into supporting an airbase? Not to mention, who maintains those tanks, those trucks, those jets... ermmm somebody's got to. What about supply? Ever seen a 39 cent part break a $500K machine? No problem, we'll airlift that in too... it'll be there in about a week if we're lucky. Oh wait, how's it going to get there? Let's post it!! What if it's something classified? Post it anyways? Come on...

Want to contract it out, sure no problem... Here's an example... Contractors used just to resurface a runway in England... say 5 Million UK pounds(just a guess)... hmmmm 9 million dollars... plus who's going to maintain it the rest of the time?? You can't let it just sit there... hey wait... let's contract that out too... oh wait, that costs more money plus we have to pay overtime, military people do not get overtime...

The military is not just made of people who fly fighters or drive tanks... The military is a complex machine you have to see and be part of to understand. Go visit an Army Post or an Air Base. Ask anyone there what their job is and why it's important... Everybody has a reason for being there. Everyone has a key part in every mission of every base. It doesn't matter if you're a cook or pilot... you're still important. Those numbers are reflected in the number of personnel at any base.

Rummy knows that the military is not just there to spend money... All the bases have a mission or they ARE being closed or turned over, this includes bases in the USA too... This closure of bases has been going on for the last 10 years... It's not all going to happen until the world is a perfect place and it never will be.