"As much as I agree with their sentiment, I disagree with their right to say it."
Well, Clinton reduced our military personnel by some one million soldiers (700,000+ active duty and 300,000 or so reserves) during his eight years in office. And now, people are complaining that we don't have enough troops over there to handle the situation properly. Which means all of these guys is at greater risk TO BE DEAD. So screw protocol. Kerry would be at least as anti-military as Clinton, and these guys have every right in the world to make their feelings known. It's their ass on the line out there.
Cheney/Rumsfeld, under Bush 41, authored a report that said that 12 divisions would be the bear minimum.
When Bush 41 left office, we had reduced from 18 divisions to 14.
When Clinton left office, we had 10.
So in the middle of a discussion over the 11 new combat brigades the Army was deploying, the Dems start a digression trying to point out why this was all the Republicans fault, and the evidence presented was the above - which didn't make the Dems look good.
So they fell back on "well why don't we raise two more divisions, if we really need 12".
The answer, of course, was "because we're raising these combat brigades, which will give us the equivalent of three more divisions, only organized in a way that can be deployed more flexibly."
I swear, sometimes, they just don't have a clue.