Experts: U.S. Military Overstretched, Morale Risked

[Barrett808]

Experts: U.S. Military Overstretched, Morale Risked
By Alan Elsner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military is overstretched by deployments in Iraq and elsewhere, forcing the Pentagon (news - web sites) to keep thousands of soldiers and reservists in uniform long beyond their release dates with potentially dangerous effects on morale, experts say.

"There is no question that the force is stretched too thin," said David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland.

"We have stopped treating the reserves as a force in reserve. Our volunteer army is closer to being broken today than ever before in its 30-year history," Segal said.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and U.S. commanders concede that the 1.4 million-member active duty armed forces, which have been cut by about a third since the end of the Cold War, are stretched by deployments in South Korea and Europe as well as post-2001 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But Rumsfeld says he has seen no evidence so far in a major ongoing Pentagon study to support calls from analysts and some Army officials to boost the service's strength by perhaps 20,000 troops to 500,000.

Signs of strain are appearing, however. Segal said the National Guard finished last year around 10,000 below its recruitment target and he predicted more severe recruitment and retention problems next year.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040108/ts_nm/iraq_army_dc&cid=564&ncid=1480

[saigon68]

1. ITS GOING TO GET "Drafty" IN HERE

The neocons can't wait. Especially with 8 million new "Legal Immigrants" to pick from.

[KayLaw]

2. There you go

I agree, though with much sadness.

[montanacowboy]

3. Those 8-14 million

illegal immigrants might be careful about what they are wishing for, they might get it - in the form of a letter that begins "Greetings"! ha!

[velocity]

4. check out SoCalDem post on

"our" troops coming back to Germany so they then can go to Afgan

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=995515

[lovedems]

5. OK, my husband is in a band and the lead singer is married. Her dad

has been in Iraq and is getting ready to leave for his second tour. Sorry, this is as close to "knowing someone in Iraq" as I get. We have had long conversations about how her dad feels about Iraq. He hated it over there, said everyone else hated it and didn't want to be there and he despises the thought of going back. That is just one persons views who claims to speak for many. Apparently the DOD see what they want to see and that, my friend, is that.

[alfredo]

6. My friend just may not have to go. He has decided to retire if

they will let him. He has been in the reserves for several decades as an artillery expert. He recently failed his deployment physical. So what do they do, they transfer him to infantry and ordered him to report to another unit for deployment. Well someone knowing his physical conditions and his age, said he cannot not go to Iraq.

My friend is not taking any chances, he is getting out.

[DS1]

7. Rumsfeld said we could handle North Korea AND Syria

while still in Iraq.