Military Update: Debate heats up over strained (over-worked, over-deployed) forces

Even before 9/11 and America’s global war on terrorism, U.S. military leaders argued that force levels needed to rise, or worldwide commitments needed to fall, to avoid wearing out troops and creating personnel shortfalls.

Two years, two wars and two prolonged U.S. occupation forces later, the strain on forces is broader and deeper than at any time since an all-volunteer force began 30 years ago.

The Bush administration has kicked the pace of operations into overdrive with the war in Iraq, on top of Afghanistan, homeland security, peacekeeping in Liberia and rising tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Still, the administration balks at the cost of expanding active forces beyond 1.37 million. Before he would endorse that, said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he wants the services to ease deployment stress through bureaucratic reforms, by assigning and rotating troops more efficiently.

Indeed, said Rumsfeld at an Aug. 5 press conference, “we can use the stress on the force to get our act together and to do a better job managing the taxpayers’ money … managing our force in a way that’s more respectful of the Guard and Reserve and their employers and their families.”

As the issue simmers inside the Pentagon, a rising chorus outside — of auditors, defense analysts and advocates for military families — suggest the administration already is late in pressing Congress for more people, given the dangerous and daunting contingencies U.S. troops now face.

A new General Accounting Office report (03-670) looks at the strain on U.S. forces just from new domestic missions since 9/11, and criticizes Defense officials for delaying force structure changes to address homeland security needs until the next Quadrennial Defense Review in 2005.

The administration did establish a U.S. Northern Command to coordinate domestic operations, and an office of assistant defense secretary for homeland defense to supervise that responsibility.

But because forces aren’t tailored to perform missions such as domestic combat air patrols and installation security, training is stunted and readiness is eroding, GAO said.

Meanwhile, the pace of operations for units involved in homeland defense is high enough that thousands of military personnel are exceeding personnel tempo ceilings set by Congress to protect troop morale. As a result, GAO warned, they face “future personnel retention problems.”

Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, studied the troop rotation plan for Iraq, which would maintain current force levels using replacement brigades that will serve there for up to a year. Despite that hardship, reminiscent of combat tours in Vietnam, O’Hanlon said the Army’s rotation base could be exhausted by late 2004.

“That means we will have to take the unthinkable step of sending back to Iraq people who returned from there a year before,” said O’Hanlon. “Many American soldiers, as dedicated as they are, will choose not to re-enlist rather than accept such an unpalatable — and frankly, unfair — demand upon them and their families.”

In announcing the Iraq force rotation plan, Gen. John Keane, deputy chief of staff, discussed an Army stretched thin. He said 24 of the 33 active brigades — or 73 percent — deployed overseas in fiscal 2003, along with 15 of 45 Army National Guard enhanced battalions.

In July alone, 369,000 U.S. soldiers were overseas, including 61,000 reservists and 74,000 Guard members. The largest deployments left 133,000 soldiers in Iraq, 34,000 in Kuwait, 31,000 in South Korea, 9,600 in Afghanistan and 5,100 in the Balkans.

Another 29,000 were deployed stateside, away from family, on homeland security missions.

Meredith Leyva, author of Married to the Military: A Survival Guide, and wife of a Navy physician, wrote in a recent commentary that “resentment among servicemembers and their families, at the now-unbearable pace of deployments, can hardly be contained by their commanding officers, even though such comments can end their careers.”

— Comments are welcomed. Write Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA 20120-1111, e-mail milupdate@aol.com or visit Philpott’s Web site at: www.militaryupdate.com.

The rotation in Germany to Kosovo, Bosnia, Africa, and normal training deployments had burned families out by 2000, the year I returned to the States.

Why does the Army NOT increase it's size: it costs 60,000 a year to put a new troop on the ground. I would say we need a 17 division Army, with 3 of those on permanent Border Guard duty to preserve Homeland Security.

Most call for a 40,000 troop increase. Do the math. That's 2.5 billion bucks more per year.

Why not just take that old "peace dividend" (remember that) and put that money formerly spent on troops back into troops? Because the politicians want to institute a 400 billion dollar prescription drug entitlement that will forever suck up that old "peace dividend" money.

That all of the Democrats are wrong about everything regarding the military including the proper force structure does not make Bush and Rumsfeld right.

I estimated after 9-11 that, if we went to war (good move, GWB!) that we would require a ground force of ten million.

I told both of my sons to figure on a draft if they did not enlist.

I still think this was correct. The idea that Trashcanistan and Iraq will become self-governing, non-threatening states without Germany and Japan-style occupation governments is absurd.

The belief that we will not need to (or be forced into) other engagements while the bulk of our combat power is tied up in South Asia and Iraq is foolish and dangerous.

I pray for the President every day, and I hope I am wrong-but I don't think I am.

I, too, am no radical liberal bemoaning straw men in an effort to injure the president.

This president has my support. But I will speak what I KNOW to be true.

There are 2 ways that I know of to retain these overworked forces. (1) Add a significant number of troops to ease the deployment burden. (2) Raise their pay so DRAMATICALLY that they simply cannot leave such largesse.

The better of those 2 choices is to increase the size of the Army.

Everyone should note that the other services have a different mission statement that has already taken many of them HOME.

The army SHOULD be much larger because it is the Army that has the mission and has ALWAYS had the mission of PEACEMAKING AND PEACEKEEPING once the phase of intense combat is over.

I pray you are wrong too, Jim...but I fear you are on the right track.

We are in a dangerous era of history...and we have dangerous enemies who are setting themselves up economically, politically and militarily (and sadly, we are helping them do it) to take abject advantage of current conditions and pose a deadly challenege to our liberty.

I pray it does not come about, but I know we had best keep our eyes open and prepare.

The problem is not that the active army is <400k men, but that it's the wrong ones.

We have ten partially-manned divisions. We have five active SF groups, fielding teams that are at about 80% strength. But we have over 150,000 clerks of one type or another. The army has almost 50,000 enlisted personnel clerks alone. Versus about 35,000 infantry (from privates to generals, including thousands that aren't serving in infantry jobs).

Right now, all those clerks are needed because the personnel system is so bureaucratic and backward. The whole system needs to be overhauled (with most of the clerk stuff contracted out) to get those personnel spaces back.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

You are correct that we need more fighters in the mix.

However, unlike the Marines, the Army MUST supply it's own logistical support from top to bottom. I agree, with one provision, that we need to civilianize some support slots, but there is no dollar savings to DoD in doing so. It costs just as much to employ a new GS 3 or 4 as it does a PFC.

And, with the PFC, you have someone who is CONTRACTUALLY BOUND by an enlistment oath to deploy with you when the rhetoric turns to war. A civilian CAN quit at that time.

Therefore, we must identify CRITICAL support functions that simply MUST NOT (can not) be civilianized.

For example, you aren't going to find many truck drivers anxious to drive supplies up and down supply routes in a war zone. You better bring your own.

Likewise, our decontamination teams, if civilianized wouldn't be likely to follow through and go overseas to an NBC environment.

I was always fascinated with the "company clerk." As much as the Army got rid of those guys at the company level, they still "unofficially" exist. The first sergeant finds a dependable guy and keeps him there to chase down admin, log, and personnel issues. PAC's at battalion level have their place, and probably a lot of them can be civilianized, but you will have "shadow" clerks at the company level. (A great junior training NCO (SGT), dual hatted.)

Bottom line: after you ID those who you really want to LOCK IN so they're REQUIRED to deploy with you, you still have a need to expand the force.

The Army must contain its own support. It is the ONLY service that has a mission to go inland, thereby isolating itself on the battlefield. (Incidentally, the Marines use the army supply tail when they're inland for any length of time -- distant from their ships. The design of their support tail assumes that they're close to their ships.)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.