Posted on 03/29/2007 1:04:06 PM PDT by pabianice
Having lived in Washington for almost 20 years before becoming a transplanted Texan, being back in D.C. last week felt downright weird. Some things obviously hadn't changed.
The Redskins were about to trade another less-than-successful safety for whom they paid too much to begin with. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that a well-known lobbying firm had just earned its owner more than $11 million, the legislative process sometimes resembling thoroughbred racing or high-stakes poker.
What had changed dramatically, however, was the issue prompting my trip: the U.S. Army and its readiness for battle.
The short version of my findings: The Army is no longer at the tipping point but at the breaking point.
Some argue that it already is broken, but the reality resembles certain West Texas towns like Noodle and Munday. Strictly speaking, they are not located at the end of the world, but you can see that point clearly, and the local bus will take you out there for a quarter.
It is much the same in today's breaking-point Army, where institutional meltdown is in sight. The Army (created in 1775, an act of faith that necessarily preceded independence) is too small for its missions abroad and at home. Recent stories like the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed have only increased the growing sense of urgency.
Just last week, for example, the New York Times nonchalantly reported the shocking fact that almost 3,200 soldiers deserted last year. The response by an Army spokesman: Because desertions remain "below postwar levels and retention remains high, the force is healthy."
Wanna bet? Those glib words are contradicted by a high-ranking insider who, because he is still in a position to know, must remain nameless.
He characterizes the Army as "an unready force" which five years after 9-11 has been stretched beyond the breaking point.
The math runs like this: The Army must provide 33 brigades each consisting of about 3,500 soldiers to meet requirements from Iraq and Afghanistan to Korea and Germany. With the surge in Iraq requiring an additional 20,000 troops, the cupboard is rapidly running bare.
With half its 43 active-duty brigades already deployed overseas, the Army can only meet those commitments by dipping into the Reserves and each of those brigades already has been mobilized and sent overseas at least once. The effect, according to the military insider: "We face two risks in Iraq: Al-Qaida and breaking the volunteer Army."
The result of this force-to-mission mismatch is that we now have a "just-in-time Army," double-timing hard to stay a step ahead of its deployments.
Ever mindful that slick-sounding bafflegab is the mother's milk of congressional hearings, Pentagon personnel weenies came up with the "dwell-time-to-deployment ratio" to put the best possible face on an absurdity.
The current ratio is 1-to-1, meaning that you're either on a one-year deployment or at home for a year getting ready for the next one. "But the real bad news is that 'dwell time' is going down to .7," my source said, so our soldiers may soon meet themselves coming home while heading back out the door.
Sheer statistical nonsense, of course, but its effects are quite real. With soldiers facing back-to-back deployments, it is small wonder that divorce rates in the volunteer Army are climbing or that some must make hard choices between family and continued service.
Tough, realistic Army training a defining feature and secret weapon for two decades is also coming under enormous pressure as time, money and people are siphoned off just to meet the frantic pace of current operational commitments.
Yet the Times also reported last week that even in the elite 82nd Airborne Division, "the so-called ready brigade is no longer so ready" to fight. Its soldiers are untrained, and its equipment is elsewhere. Nor is this an isolated problem, according to my source: "Forty percent of our equipment is either in Iraq or is being rebuilt."
After consuming the peace dividend, you start gobbling up the seed corn. So it is in today's just-in-time Army, just in time for our upcoming war with Iran.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Retired Col. Ken Allard is an executive-in-residence at UTSA and author of "Warheads: Cable News and the Fog of War." E-mail him at WARHEADS6@aol.com.
This is, like, "breaking point" number 37, isn't it??
We've been told that the Army was "nearing the breaking point" since the sandstorm during the initial invasion!!!
The U.S. Armed Services are more ready, more battle tested, more trained and ready to wage war the anytime in the last 40 years.
The misleading stats about "deserters" is such garbage. That statistic is nothing but white noise. People quit all sorts of jobs...(including the military...surprise, surprise). They are doing it no more often today...then ever before.
Bringing up the 82nd is no longer currently taking on the DRF status means squat (other then this guy has no clue what he is talking about). Of course some of the 101st is going to take on the DRF role while the majority of the 82nd combat arms are working OCONUS.
I could go on....but don't have the time currently....But those suggesting our military is near any breaking point are absurd and lying (or spinning for various reasons).
Do we need more soldiers. Yes.
You are right. A most important thing on dealing with Iran is to do it right: Hit selected targets to take out their leadership, military and nuclear facilities. Keep civilian casualties to a minimum to save the many, many pro-American Iranians. Then when the smoke settles, help them. It must be done in a WIN-WIN way for the Administration. Do not allow the Power hungry, America-comes-last leftist crowd to be able to take any credit. Make it a victory showing our moral authority over the left's immorality. A victory of Good over Evil. And RUB it in.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080356/
MSNBC military analysts and experts
Updated: 2:24 p.m. ET Feb 23, 2007
Scroll below to read the biographies MSNBCs military analysts and experts.
COL. KEN ALLARD
Ken Allard is a well-known commentator on international security issues. His military career as an operational intelligence officer included service on the faculty of the U.S. Military Academy as special assistant to the Army Chief of Staff and as dean of students at the National War College. In 1996, he served on special assignment with the U.S. 1st Armored Division in Bosnia. A noted author and lecturer, Allards many publications include two books: Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned and Command, Control and the Common Defense, which won the 1991 National Security Book Award. Allard holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and an M.P.A. from Harvard University.
WILLIAM ARKIN
GEN. WAYNE DOWNING
LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA
Lt Col Rick Francona
DANIEL GOURE
COL. JACK JACOBS
GEN. BARRY MCCAFFREY
GEN. MONTGOMERY MEIGS
GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF
Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf
© 2007 MSNBC Interactive
Uhhhhhhhh. Instead of "tough, realistic training" they are being shot at with real bullets by real enemy with real blood in a real war zone. Yeah. Sooooo. Sounds like "tough, realistic OJT" to me.
IMHO, Iran is now the key to the post-Saddam situation. If we can destabilize that regime and it falls, the picture completely changes. That would leave Syria the only remaining state supporter of the various terrorist groups in the region and I do not believe they could sustain that alone, cut off from Iranian money and support.
Well, they sent the Army in without armored Humvees. You know, the ones that replaced the armored Jeeps of old.
Oh, wait. The old Jeeps weren't armored. Ah, minor point.
That kind of OJT will kill you when you make a mistake. In training you get a second chance.
I have LONG contended that the Army needs 6 to 8 more combat brigades and the Marines 3 or 4 ... just to cope with the current rotation schedule in Iraq.
If we are going to take on Iran as well, we had better double the entire military.
In war, there are three thing that you are always short of, men, ammo and enemy dead.
There's the problem.
Time to let the Koreans and the Europeans to ante up and protect themselves
I work at an Army post and this article is NOT TRUTH. I am not a military but everything I see is not what this article indicates.
It had to be politically motivated at a time where our president is going through an attack from internal foes, for power pleasure, while we are fighting foes from without.
It is a disgrace what this liberals are doing to this country.....
We must bind together to defeat them in 08, 010!!
!Yo soy el Army!
The Army and Marines are fairly busy. Time for the Navy and Air Force to buff up their combat hardness.
Care to decipher that?
Worn out like a pair of old shoes, I believe was the opening salvo from the murtherer.
I think that's in the works. May be tough to get done in time of war without a draft.
Care to decipher that?
Sure!
Whoever wrote this article, it was for the purpose to discredit the president and anything he is trying to do in Iraq...the target of the liberal writing of this article is to throw another dart to the president and the GOP.
Nobody is sending anyone anywhere "untrained." Not implying that you said that, but the author gives the impression that they're taking recruits, dressing them up, and sending them on patrol in Sadr city the following week with a Petraeus handbook.
The point is, once trained on the basics, which gives a better environment to learn "tough, realistic" training--an Army base, or a real war?
A pilot always has to solo for the first time, eventually.
A high-rise construction worker has to step out on the 34th floor eventually.
Which pilot do you want to fly with? Which construction worker do you want walking near you on a beam?
The one that's been through "tough, realistic" training for a year....or one that's been in the real world for 3 months?
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