Guard chief: Any surge should be involuntary whole-unit call-ups

[spindrifter]

By Michelle Tan
Staff writer

If the Army National Guard is called to support a troop surge in Iraq, any additional soldiers should be involuntarily mobilized as whole units, the director of the component said Thursday.

<snip>

because (sic)nobody expected the war in Iraq to last this long, Guard and Reserve soldiers were used “inefficiently,” Vaughn said. Soldiers were spending months at mobilization stations before going overseas for 12 months, which resulted in many soldiers with up to 18 months on their mobilization clocks after just one tour.

The Guard has relatively few troops who could serve a full one-year tour without exceeding the 24-month limit. To meet any significant call for Guard troops to deploy, DoD policy would have to be changed to set new limits.

So far, soldiers have exceeded the limit and served more than one tour overseas have returned to the war zone because they volunteered to go. However, that practice has eaten away at unit cohesion as the volunteers left. Vaughn said the Guard cannot afford to further risk unit readiness and that any demand for significant numbers of troops must be filled by deploying entire units. He also said that deploying troops in piecemeal fashion would make it more difficult for the Guard to put itself into a planned cycle that would send soldiers overseas once every five years.

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http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2462453.php

[MadMaddie]

1. Can you spell D-R-A-F-T it's coming folks...

[babylonsister]

2. Maybe, unless we stop using soldiers like kindling and get them

out of there. People might enlist if they know they aren't going to be used as fodder for this war.

[the_molecule_master]

3. Draft is what we need!

Apparently, we need a draft to wake up Americans about what is going on. Even the wealthy should have to subject to the Bush neo-crats decisions to attack other countries, not just the middle class and poor youth. Oh, and don't forget, there should be no special treatment like Bush got (cake assignement in the Air National Guard at the time). It's sad to see our kids getting killed over there for no other reason than the fact that chimp is taking his orders from the Saudis and Halliburton. :|

[spindrifter]

4. Welcome to DU! This article

shows another issue that Congress needs to investigate: inefficient utilization of the troops we have. In order to get the type of deployment they are talking about, the law has to change--and Congress should not permit that to happen.

[newyawker99]

5. Hi the_molecule_master!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: