Asking too much of too few

[babylonsister]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/20809.html

Galloway column: Asking too much of too few
By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007

snip//

It's clear that we're grinding up our seed corn in Iraq and Afghanistan. For much too long, the administration and former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sought to fight their wars on the cheap, without adding desperately needed but expensive manpower to an Army that started with only 486,000 troops on active duty.

By the time the powers that be agreed to begin adding an additional 10,000 per year in a “temporary” increase, on top of the 80,000 it must enlist each year just to replace departing soldiers, getting young men and women to sign up had already become such a serious problem that the Army started paying enlistment bonuses of up to $20,000 for new recruits.

To make the numbers, the Army also has lowered its standards and begun accepting high school dropouts and offering waivers to sign up recruits with criminal records or physical problems and even some who scored in the lowest quarter on the armed services vocational aptitude test.

That's only made more trouble for those captains Adm. Mullen talked to this week. One complained to Mullen that he was forced to spend 80 percent of his time dealing with the 13 “problem children” in his 100-man company.

Mullen told the junior officers that his service dates back to the Vietnam War, and he remembers vividly how our military was broken at the end of that war, and how hard it was to repair the damage. He said he doesn’t want to see the current wars break the force again.

But that's precisely what is happening as troops, families and equipment are ground down by asking too much of too few. Just over half a percent of our 300 million citizens carry the entire burden and make all the sacrifices in an inexcusably unfinished war of necessity in Afghanistan and a costly war of choice in Iraq.

There seemingly is no relief in sight, even after George W. Bush leaves office on January 20, 2009, and that's bad news for our nation and a crying shame if you're wearing the uniform and serving it.
McClatchy Newspapers 2007

[unhappycamper]

1. And they're paying big bucks to folks still in service to reup.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=259&topic_id=5130

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=259&topic_id=4969

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=259&topic_id=4099

[babylonsister]

2. Regardless of how much they're making, they're still being recycled.

I imagine at some point their situation gets beyond tiring, not to mention the potential damage to families.

[unhappycamper]

3. Oh yea.

I just posted another McClatchy article in the Veterans forum about Mullen's visit.

[Toots]

4. Imagine the crunch if all the Contractors were to leave considering there are more

"Contractors" there than actual troops. More money goes to "Contractors" than to the military when Bush* ask for more Iraq money. And that money ends up "missing"...."How Convenient".......