Posted on 07/14/2003 8:26:51 PM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
Edited on 07/12/2004 4:05:14 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has ordered the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines to draft plans for a sweeping restructuring of the 900,000-strong National Guard and reserve forces.
In a July 9 memo to the four service secretaries and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Mr. Rumsfeld said he wants to reduce the need for calling up large numbers of reservists in a war and to do away with it altogether in the first 15 days of a crisis. He also does not want any unit called up for more than one year in any six years.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Not pissing me off, only send troops for our national interests. I still haven't figured out our national interests in the Balkans. We need to get out. And Liberia, I shutter at the thought, I think it's a lose/lose situation waiting to happen.
However, going to kill a terrorist is in our national interest, and the military: Active, Reserver, and Guard will readily volunteer to go.
I think Irag was waged correctly, and Afghanistan for the most part. Waging Irag exclusively by Special Ops and Air power would have gone on for years because a centralized government had military power. Afghanistan was a country of factions without the central Military base, just right for Special Ops.
The current military design was made to have full effort, get in and get out, like the Gulf War I. This war on terror will be a prolonged operation. I don't see any way around it short of nuking the entire middle east, and that's even too extreme an option for me.
It's not a "national disgrace," it's national policy. As another poster pointed out, the post-Vietnam Army was structured so that any major operation required a reserve call-up. This was a defensive move by the Army to keep the pols from throwing it into another Vietnam.
Some units are in the reserve components because they are too unglamourous for active officers to want them. These include water purification and Civil Affairs, which is often a last stop for Special Forces guys who are too busted up to SF any more.
The original Abrams plan was changed by Les "you don't need no stinkin support in Somalia" Aspin and Clinton in 1994. Presidents (Reagan, Bush and Clinton) had faced resistance from lefty state governors like Mike Dukakis, to deploying National Guard units. Aspin's brainstorm was to move all the combat units into the National Guard -- the Army brass did not want reserve combat units ever to deploy, not while active units were threatened by downsizing -- and all the support units, which the Army's combat units needed in wartime, into the Reserve. Clinton's twist on the plan was to use it as a smoke screen to disband large numbers of units and shrink the reserves invisibly to the public. many of the units disbanded were understrength and probably were small loss to the nation, because the soldiers transferred into other understrength outfits and fleshed 'em out. But at this time, Clinton and Aspin eliminated two Reserve Special Forces Groups, the 11th and 12th, that were more up to strength than the two Guard groups or the active ones. Because there are only two Guard SF groups left, many of those great soldiers were lost for good.
We sure could have used them in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the Phillipines, and Colombia, and, and and....
But then again, if Clinton and Aspin (and his successor Cohen) had done their duty, we'd have had 11th and 12th Groups, and we WOULDN'T HAVE NEEDED THEM.
Look for this reorg to also mask a downsizing, and look for Army brass to settle some old scores.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I'm assuming you have already been in the military. I have over 26 years, about 6 active. The time I spend in the Reserves was some of the most fun, up until I got promoted too much than it became real work, and I couldn't continue to be buddies with the guys.
However, when the opportunity came to join the 101st, I jumped, the chance for a REMF like me to be a screaming eagle was a dream come true.
What I'm saying is that the reward of belonging were worth the sacrifice. And when 911 happened, I told my wife I was going to be called, two months later, I was there, and 75 days later I was in the middle east. So if you join, you have to be prepared to go.
My advice, join. I got a lot back from it.
Not if we're smart about contracting. For instance, the US Army has about 50,000 personnel clerks (CMF 71) on active duty. Visiting a personnel office is like going to the DMV -- stupid, apathetic people moving like a glacier with polio.
You could do the whole thing with a check to a contractor and 500 auditors and compliance clerks, for probably a quarter of the money (we are going to be paying these worthless Army clerks a pension for life... they will never take a risk, or fire a shot in anger... why?)
I was never in the Navy, so I can't speak to their way of doing things. I have dealt with an Air Force personnel office, and it was two people and a bunch of automation (the Army would have staffed an equivalent with a platoon of thirty to forty useless mouths to feed).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
From what I remember
Coast Guard
INS
National Reserves (proposed)
The secretary of Homeland Defense has more combat power under his control than the vice President.
Maybe it's me but it almost seems like an SS or SA level organization is being made in America.
You've got a handle on it. If we really wanna win this thing, we will remove the big conventional task force and it's three-star commander, and put the whole war under the command of the CJSOTF-A (Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, Afghanistan). Give him the infantry battalions, and let his staff plan operations, rather than the gung-ho but unimaginative conventional officers who have been doing it so far.
However, the odds of that happening are very small. For many Army officers, the war is about careers.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
If we're looking a Wet Willie's callups, let's not forget Haiti, where we replaced cruel, corrupt dictator Cedras, with cruel, corrupt, but technically elected dictator Aristide. Bunches of Reserve and Guard soldiers were stuck there over the next couple years.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Before CJSOTF-A, there was CJSOTF-S that controlled it all after TF Dagger desolved. I was a J3 in TF KBAR. A conventional officer, and a real REMF.
Read the hunt for bin laden, the story of TF DAGGER by Roger Moore, it's about 90-95% correct. And really hammers the conventual pukes, especially Franks.
I once tried to get the special operations to use available conventual troops as a ready reaction, blocking force, and have available motars to support the mission, I was told "Are you out of your mind, they'll (conventional forces) will kill us."
Both SF and conventional need to learn to work together better.
Most of our guys took pay cuts when we mobilised. But we were cool with it. We really feel for the guys in the infantry and MP units that were called up and spent months guarding reservoirs, etc. thankless, uncomfortable duty, and for all that they didn't get "into the game" like we did.
One MP unit was stuck at Ft. Dix, NJ trying to mobilize for over two months -- the basic incompetence of Army clerks winning out. One reason we are beating up the reserves is that we have a mobilisation process that wastes a month to three at each end of the activation.
Imagine taking a 50% pay cut, and then it's to stand on an access road to a reservoir, chasing fishermen off, or worse yet to be jerked around by 70-IQ clerks in the wastes of South Jersey. That's what will drive people out.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Wow, I could go for pages on this one.
However, to generalize, a large contingent of the Muslims (doesn't matter what muslin middle eastern country, it's all of them) believe the US is the Great Satin, Israel even worse, and the US is doing Israel's bidding.
With Iraq we have a base of operations, usable ports, and large contigent of Armored forces capable of striking at any of them.
We have their attention!
State sponsered terrorism is going to be at an all time low as long as they believe we are will to take them out if we think they're guilty.
So I think Irag was and is worth every cent, and was done to perfection (as much as a military action can be).
No amount of planning can overcome dumb luck, super soldiers, and inherent skill.
I cannot say enough good things about how the Iraqi war went. The flexibility to change things hours before the expected battle kickoff, somehow keeping enough supplies to allow the troops to move, and starting with a ground campaign instead of air.
If this was a half assed battle plan, I hope we continue to produce them.
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