Comments on: The Downside of End-Strength Increases

By: matt hood

matt hood — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:39:27 +0000

Dear Sir: President Bush is a hypocrite. He will give his life for the free market system that screws us; but he refuses to practice what he preaches. If America will pay them, our future professional soldiers will come. America needs to stop giving college scholarships to bribe our young people to serve our country. We need to make being in the military a life time career for both the enlisted men and the officers in our military. We must stop retiring people in the military if they can still work, who want to stay! The use of Blackwater in Iraq is a disgrace to this nation, who should pay our full time soldiers the same kind of money to sever all their life in the military; knowing that if they achieve, they constantly through out their life, they will get a raise. America needs life time well paid career military personnel who are professional soldiers who want to devote their entire lives to the national defense of this country. A well paid military will cause our young men to flood to the military. We must stop the historical disgrace of this nation, who has a long history of cheating our soldiers on their pay and under funding them; while our politicians, they take all they can get from the American taxpayers. Stop paying our soldiers minimum wage! Pay them a professional wage!

By: Max

Max — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:46:10 +0000

This is so stupid. I may be repeating some of the other posts, but this is exactly the same kind of thinking that we heard after 1990 “Hey the Soviet Union is no longer around, so let’s disarm and get a peace dividend!” What happened is obvious: we cut our Army and Marines down so much that only ten years later, we badly needed the number of troops that we had in the First Gulf war, but there were only half as many around as before. Don’t we ever learn? We are engaged in a world-wide fight against Al-queda; while Iraq is looking a lot better, we still have a big problem in and around Pakistan with Bin Laden, and only God knows what else is stirring ten years from now. We need double or triple the number of troop increase proposed by Bush and the sooner the better.

By: Pappy

Pappy — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 19:58:23 +0000

What most people fail to grasp is the ratio of combat elements, aka "trigger pullers" to logistical and support elements, aka "paper pushers". Whether the "paper pusher" is a tractor-trailer driver, water point operator, medic or administrator each one has a specific job to do that ultimately supports the "trigger puller". It previously was referred to as the "tooth to tail ratio" which has risen continuously from 1-10 in WWII to 1-15 in Vietnam to 1-19 in the present. Technology has expanded the abilities of the military to support it's actual combat arms -Infantry, Armor, Artillery, fighter-bombers, subs, destroyers and such. The rest only exist to insure the bullets and bombs delivered to the "trigger pullers" get, in turn, delivered to the enemy. Expanded missions are given to "trigger pullers". Now they must be politicians, lawyers, traffic cops, governmental interceeders and perform so many complex duties that have never been trained nor even thought of in prior wars. It would be nice if all those thousands of soldiers and marines were "trigger pullers" but it will never turn out that way. If even 25% of them are actual combat troops that would be a surprise to me.

By: Marvin L Mobley

Marvin L Mobley — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:07:57 +0000

I agree 110% John Schiller.….Even with all the hi-cost contracted civilian support, Air Force and Navy, cooks, clerk typist, etc have been sent to fill in as truck drivers, machine gun operators etc.That smaller and meaner group have served 2,3,4 and more tours in Iraq and AFghanistan . Lets do this, Have nothing but ground troops on active duty, and contract all the rest support jobs. But have half a million grunts, army and marine so there will be enough to rotate in and out in any conflict one time…Don’t send our sons and daughters time and time again till they eventuall all get killed.….…

By: WG

WG — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:34:24 +0000

“the Democrats applauded for fear of being labeled soft on terrorism“
Right.
It couldn’t be because they see our Army stretched to the breaking point by repeated deployments.
Did you lift that line from Fox “news”?

By: ohwilleke

ohwilleke — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:08:40 +0000

Foreign Boy: While you have the right general idea, your history is wrong. The main reason that the National Guard is now available to the extent that it is for foreign deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan is that the National Guard was a way of avoiding service in Vietnam, at a time when the United States was drafting significant numbers of people.
I am in full agreement with the policy that says that the National Guard, made up of trained people who have volunteered for military service should be deployed before the nation resorts for a draft. But, there was an overreaction.
There is room for middle ground between current policy which treats National Guard soldiers as fungible alternatives to active duty soldiers and sends them on multiple tours of duty in a five year old war with no end in sight, and the Vietnam era policy that deployed conscripts before deploying members of the Guard.
It wouldn’t be unreasonable, for example, to limit National Guard deployments to one foreign tour of duty in the absence of a draft. The National Guard should be the last line of defense that allows us time to train citizen soldier conscripts, not a crutch for generals who have trouble planning troop requires that are obvious far in advance.

By: Foreign.Boy

Foreign.Boy — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:16:54 +0000

I don’t think it’s fair that they count the national guard as part of the overall fighting strength. Not only have they been over deployed in the last 20 years, but they are people who are not as committed to soldiering as the regular forces are. These people mostly sign up to help with natural disasters at home. People who are trained to kill but have no intention to do so. I know maybe my portrayal of the Guard maybe be wrong.. but I do know that they aren’t suppose to be deployed overseas more than once every 20 years. I think it’s longer cause I remember reading that cause the guard was used in Vietnam, they shouldn’t be used in Iraq.

By: Drew

Drew — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:59:48 +0000

While we need spec ops as well as light anti piracy naval assets, a build up of conventional forces wouldn’t hurt. Future heavy commitments of land forces may be just over the horizon. Further it’s not right for so few troops to bear the burden of a 300 mil person nation that only spends 4% of GDP on defense, compared with 15% in the 1950’s.. Get off the checkbook and let’s act like a superpower again…

By: Margie Mac

Margie Mac — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 02:21:08 +0000

Great. We have known terroist cells here in America and we want to keep sending our men an women over to Iraq. Who in the heck is going to protect us here when “Our troops are making grounds against the Insurgents” in Iraq? Bring our troops home, slowly, and let them use those exceptional skills to find insurgents in America before we have ANOTHER 9/11 incident.

By: AK

AK — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 00:44:32 +0000

No matter what the numbers, don’t forget any force deployed post-2012 will have 10000 unused but slightly rusty MRAPs to help out ;)