[Mr.Unique]

I would hate to think there are guns, tanks, missiles, airplanes, ships, etc. just sitting in warehouses somewhere with no one to use them as their shelf life expires!

We actually do...normally. It is called War Reserve Materiel.

[jwparkerjr]

re: normally

This is not normally though, coming off almost four years of two wars plus the usual needs of an armed forces spread all around a very large world. Troops in Europe, Japan, Korea, etc. and naval forces in virtually every major body of water deep enough to float them and air forces in the skies over lots of different places. I am not a military expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know that our forces were cut to the bone in the 90's and then all of a sudden we were faced with not only restoring our defenses to where they were prior to the 'peace dividend' AND fighting two wars. We have not had the kind of, and amount of, reserve material we should have for almost 20 years now.

21,000 plus COMBAT troops is a lot of people and equipment.

I might well have overstated my opinion, but the fact remains IMHO this is a sizable increase in forces.