Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
23 April 1898 President McKinley called for 125,000 volunteers.

11 May 1898 the Second Oregon Volunteers were on the train from Camp Withycombe outside Portland, Oregon ( a great little military museum there, btw for those who enjoy that kind of thing) to their port of debarkation in San Francisco. As I recall they took up the motto "First to Assemble" as they were the first such volunteer regiment to form and ship out.

25 May they sailed from San Francisco...
That was then, this is now.

You know perfectly well that today we cannot even activate and ship a trained -- even one that's been to Iraq -- ArNG unit in that time for a host of valid reasons. Not least laws passed by the Congress that dictate training times and AC 'Certification' of combat readiness prior to deployment. Carl is correct in ascribing some of those problems to the military personnel bureaucracy (which needs to be totally rebuilt in any case) but it's more complex than that. Not least the concern over poorly to marginally trained and equipped units taking mass casualties, particularly if most such units come from the same small towns. That concern is not or would not be limited to Politicians though that factor prompted those laws I mentioned.

I can sweep the streets and give you a slew of 1900 -- or even 1950 -- level Infantryman in two to four weeks, resource dependent. I could train them shipboard on the 30 day voyage to the Phillipines as I'm sure occured. I cannot do that for today's Infantry. And that's walking Infantry, add in vehicles or aircraft and we're in a different world.

JMA is correct, it would take six months, minimum, IF we had the Cadre. We do not, so that would take a year. It would also take that long or longer to equip them...

We can activate the Guard or Reserve and deploy them in 90 to 180 days. That's about as good as it's gonna get in this era...

It's okay to be proud of ones heritage and experience, it's okay to dream, even to share those dreams with the world but it's not okay to promulgate dangerous illusions.