Not Enough Troops!!! Other than a draft, what's the solution?

U.S. struggles to find troops for Iraq, Afghanistan
WASHINGTON - The Army, which has been hard pressed to find enough soldiers to man the rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, may soon be faced with an urgent request to find another 5,000 to 7,000 troops to increase the number of boots on the ground in Iraq.


Commanders there have been quietly signaling an immediate need for at least that many more soldiers to add to the 138,000 Americans already there. This, they say, is the minimum number needed to allow them to pursue the offensive against the insurgents in the wake of the taking of Fallujah.

Army planners are looking at a number of temporary stop-gap measures to boost the strength in Iraq during January, including extension of the tours of thousands of soldiers nearing the end of their 12-month combat assignment and speeding up the deployment of the 3rd Mech Infantry Division so more of them arrive before January.


They are also reportedly eyeing the ready brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division - which stands by at Fort Bragg for rapid deployment anywhere in the world in a crisis - as one way to boost temporarily troop strength in Iraq. Those troops, however, are light infantry and do not come equipped with the Bradley fighting vehicles and M1A2 Abrams tanks that are increasingly needed for urban combat in Iraq.


Finding the rest of the troops that commanders want may be difficult. Getting them to Iraq in time and properly equipped to fight in that dangerous environment may be even more difficult; Army and Marine commanders have already used up most of their bag of tricks to find troops for the usual rotations to Iraq.


The Baltimore Sun reports that the Army is hard pressed to find enough officers for staff jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan and will double the length of their tours in those countries from 179 days at present to a full 12 months.


Other extraordinary steps ordered or under consideration include pulling officers out of military schools or delaying entry into such programs. They could also curtail family-oriented programs such as the one that allows soldiers to extend their tours at a stateside base so their children can finish their senior year in high school.

So it's true and we all know, we don't have enough soldiers to fulfill current obligations or future actions. Bush said No Draft, but honestly, really, seriously, what other options does the government really have?????

Even if they take all currently active military personnel and station them in Iraq, how will they ever fill all the vacancies left?

Let's forget the draft option for now, is there really anything else that can be done to get the necessary enrollments needed to maintain our military???


[edit on 11-29-2004 by worldwatcher]

make the soldiers better trained so that each man or women is worth 10 normal.
AKA make it like they all go on a green hat course.

as posted by worldwatcher
Even if they take all currently active military personnel and station them in Iraq, how will they ever fill all the vacancies left?

Not buying that worldwatcher.
PBS did a documentary on the size of the US Army and mentions:

Currently, there are 499,000 active duty Army troops, backed up by 700,000 National Guard and Army reservists. That's a third less than when the U.S. fought its last big war in the Persian Gulf, in 1991;
130,000 Army troops are in Iraq. Pentagon officials had hoped to reduce that number, but the ongoing insurgency prevented it; 9,000 Army troops are in Afghanistan; 3,000 help keep the peace in Bosnia, as do 37,000 in South Korea.

THE SIZE OF THE U.S. ARMY

To me, the issue here is not necessarily that the US does not have enough troops, but:

whether the Army is too small to support its long-term commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

seekerof

[edit on 29-11-2004 by Seekerof]

Seekerof is right. The US military is huge. The best thing to do is to get rid of the gross mismanagment of the armed forces, and replace it with some compitence.

So what you're saying is that we do have enough troops to fulfill all of our military obligations?

IF SO, then why aren't they more of them in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Now if mismanagement is to blame, why isn't management being changed??? Why talk about it if they can fix it? I don't get it

Look: There WILL be a draft, eventually, at this pace

Its going to happen. Dubya will instate some really aggressive programs to keep current people in (I mean even more than he has done already).

Here is what will happen in order:
#1 Current military will continue to be �stretched�. I.e. US bases will be thinned out and re-structured to get as many �fight� worthy people to the front as possible *
#2 Over sea�s bases will be reduced in a similar fashion, even more aggressively than previously.
#3 Typically non combat personal will be retrained for combat as possible.
#4 New aggressive laws will lengthen tour times even longer, or decrease time off.
#5 Once the theatre increases in size (i.e. Iran) a draft will ensue.


* My down stairs neighbor is flying to Gitmo today as a redeployment, gave away her dog a few days ago. She is a Sergeant in the Air Force. You know what she does? She is an admin., she types. And due to �restructuring� she is being deployed to Cuba. Not to fight mind you, but most certainly to reduce strain from others leaving Cuba to fight. If we are at the point where an Air Force SECRATARY is being deployed to Cuba to back up troops being sent to fight, what steps do YOU think are next?

How long do you think we have before more aggressive �recruitment� methods?

Originally posted by worldwatcher
?

Now if mismanagement is to blame, why isn't management being changed???

Well, you would have to replace the president and his military advisory staff. I sure as hell didnt vote for the criminal.

I agree it appears there are ample national guard reservists that can be used to supply these 7000 troops. This time next year if things are still the same in Iraq even after the elections then I would expect the US to have to take a realistic look at its position in Iraq and form plans for an exit.

I think we have to provide security for a year to give this new democracy a chance but if there is no improvement during this time then all bets are off and rightly so.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

I cannot imagine that the government would institute a draft to fill in a mere few thousand slots. The return would not outweigh the social and political losses by an effin' country mile. Hell, you don't need a draft to fill those slots. Just put a little of our military budget into pay and benefits, and you should get enough people enlisting or choosing to remain voluntarily to pick up the slack. Would be a hell of alot easier than recharging the draft.

Guys, please dont forget that an Iran conflict is all but imminent at this point. I agree Iraq by itself would never cause need for a draft, but if things go the way I imagine they are about to go, there will be need...

[edit on 29-11-2004 by skippytjc]

How about we stop looking for fights? Then we won't have to deploy anyone

Preaching to the chior Reverie, tell that to Dubya...

Originally posted by Reverie
How about we stop looking for fights? Then we won't have to deploy anyone

while I love the idea, it's certainly not realistic

forgetting the draft:

here are the solutions so far:

change management (definitely the best idea so far)
higher wages and benefits
better training/equipment, so that less can do more

anything else???

Personally I feel our soldiers should be better paid than any other civil servant. I feel a private should make more than a teacher, garbage collector or postal employee. Raise the pay to competitive levels and we'll have all the soldiers we need.

You guys are right, they have tried everything for making the army seem more positive to shoiwng them as the good guys, which I still think they are. But one thing left to do is to try to show them the good points of being a soldier, and other than subliminal messages, theres no answer to this porblem other than a draft.

Heck, they probably didn't allocate enough money to fill the equipment needs of the extra troops that they need, and they just don't want to tell us that part of the picture....
($461,745 parties and lavish bonuses for jobs well done were more important!!

www.cnn.com... )