The army does this kind of thing after every extended time of peace. Heck, the finest Indian Fighting Army in the World nearly starved to death outside of New Orleans as they were getting shipped out to the Mexican American war and the supply trains didn't show up for a month.
The Army that beat the Nazis and Japs was routed in the first few months of the Korean War and the Marines nearly froze to death on the Chosin. In fact, our technology was so outdated for a while that our Sherman tanks couldn't compete with the new shaped charge of the RPG--in order to defeat the shaped charge, our soldiers and Marines lashed frozen dead bodies to the sides of the tank to 'stand-off' the shaped charge and ruin the focal point of the shaped warhead. I've seen unauthorized pictures of those tanks festooned with corpses. It looks just like hell. Nowadays, the army would put soldiers up on charges for such innovative thinking
Right now, the soldier-gear has not kept up with the weapons in effectiveness. The tents are unchanged since WWII. The sleeping gear is unchanged since WWII and american soldiers have simply never been force to sustain themselves--and there is still currently no emphasis on it.
It is all screwed up over there right now. The first Gulf War was kind of a validation exercise, except that it wasn't really long enough, or 'hot' enough to validate anything--yet we thought our methods were sound.
Afghanistan was thought to demonstrate that: "Hey, the Army is in great shape!", but it wasn't the 'leg' army that was fighting that war--it was the other real, effective 'Army' (Spec Ops of all services) Now, we send in the leg army that has been dumbed down, under trained, under funded, under lead, semi-tough army and we are watching it flounder. It is no surprise to me.
Y'know what's funny? I just volunteered to take a job in Iraq, in my company, to rebuild information systems for hospitals, schools and such... I really hope I get to go. I just love that kind of thing...