Army nears a breaking point

San Antonio News ^ | 3/29/07 | Allard

[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.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Fire trucks costing a quarter of a million dollars or more each, that in the past had simply disappeared from their station afters few runs but daily, relentless polishings from their crews were suddenly wearing out. Turns out these behemoths were never designed for the multiple runs day after day, 365 days a year.

Your kidding right?

Our engines lasted a long time. The trucks were driven daily and responded on many calls.

[jwparkerjr]

Not as long as they used to. I'm talking about a system that went from running a truck on one or two calls a day to 30 or more calls a day. My example was an extreme, just to show that we are using our forces in a manner that's not the best use of their talents and ability and it has cost us.