NYT: Unit Makes Do as Army Strives to Plug Gaps

[DeepModem Mom]

Unit Makes Do as Army Strives to Plug Gaps
By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: September 25, 2006


(Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times)
Members of the Third Infantry Division have been conducting training exercises in preparation for a third deployment to Iraq. But equipment for the training is short, and the time for it has been reduced.

FORT STEWART, Ga. — The pressures that the conflict in Iraq is putting on the Army are apparent amid the towering pine trees of southeast Georgia, where the Third Infantry Division is preparing for the likelihood that it will go back to Iraq for a third tour.

Col. Tom James, who commands the division’s Second Brigade, acknowledged that his unit’s equipment levels had fallen so low that it now had no tanks or other armored vehicles to use in training and that his soldiers were rated as largely untrained in attack and defense.

The rest of the division, which helped lead the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and conducted the first probes into Baghdad, is moving back to full strength after many months of being a shell of its former self.

But at a time when Pentagon officials are saying the Army is stretched so thin that it may be forced to go back on its pledge to limit National Guard deployment overseas, the division’s situation is symptomatic of how the shortages are playing out on the ground.

The enormous strains on equipment and personnel, because of longer-than-expected deployments, have left active Army units with little combat power in reserve. The Second Brigade, for example, has only half of the roughly 3,500 soldiers it is supposed to have. The unit trains on computer simulators, meant to recreate the experience of firing a tank’s main gun or driving in a convoy under attack....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/us/25infantry.html?hp&ex=1159156800&en=043cfecd1b06d1c2&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[grasswire]

1. WHERE IS THE MONEY going????

Jeez. A billion dollars a week and they have no equipment??!! Where is the freaking money going?

[Kagemusha]

2. They have equipment in Iraq, that stays in Iraq, that isn't being replaced

Just saying. Obviously that equipment in Iraq is going to be in pretty bad condition a year later here. So even if it's repossessed by the 3rd ID's brigade that's heading back sooner, well. it'll be bad.

[rodeodance]

3. lots of hungry pockets-corporations, outsouring, etc etc

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. This, for a weenie defenseless country of 20 million?

.
.
.

And they are contemplating attacking a country (Iran) with 70 million souls,

AND

a healthy ground, air, and naval force?

Looks like the USA is headed for the same destination as Germany under Hitler . . .

Destroying itself by going just ONE step too far . .

It'll be Russia and China "slapping the USA back into the stone age" if the USA keeps fecking around in their back yard much longer . . .

The World has been watching the fumbling USA's military in Iraq for over 3 years now . . .

The fear of the USA is gone

Hatred is growing . .

Not good methinks

[pecwae]

5. When they ETS or retire

with health problems that unit can just 'make do' then as well.