Army, Marine Corps To Ask for More Troops

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13 December Washington Post - Army, Marine Corps To Ask for More Troops by Ann Scott Tyson.

The Army and Marine Corps are planning to ask incoming Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Congress to approve permanent increases in personnel, as senior officials in both services assert that the nation's global military strategy has outstripped their resources.

In addition, the Army will press hard for "full access" to the 346,000-strong Army National Guard and the 196,000-strong Army Reserves by asking Gates to take the politically sensitive step of easing the Pentagon restrictions on the frequency and duration of involuntary call-ups for reservists, according to two senior Army officials...

[Uboat509]

All this talk about increasing the size of the military is all well and good but it seems to me that the whole concept is entirely predicated on the idea that recruiters are turning away large numbers of qualified applicants. Since this is not the case where are they going to get the bodies to fill all these extra slots? I came on active duty in '91, just in time to catch the post-cold war draw down. I remember what it was like when we had the old, larger Army and it was great. These days people don't want to serve anymore. When I joined, the idea of a $20,000 enlistment bonus was absurd. The biggest reenlistment bonus I saw was $6,000. They were, however, paying huge sums of money to people to get out. Here we are in a time of war and it is harder to get people to come in than during peacetime.

SFC W

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15 December NY Times - Top Commanders Appear Set to Urge Larger U.S. Military by Thom Shanker and Michael Gordon.

The review of Iraq policy by senior commanders appears to be headed toward a recommendation to increase the size of the American military, both to sustain a long-term commitment in Iraq and to leave the United States better positioned to deal with potential adversaries, in particular Iran and North Korea, Pentagon and military officials said Thursday.

The latest indication came when the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, called for expanding the force by adding more active-duty troops and by making more use of the National Guard and Reserve.

His statement, on Thursday, came a day after President Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon’s secure conference room to discuss reshaping strategy in Iraq. That session, officials said, included a detailed discussion of whether the armed services are large enough to sustain the mission in Iraq and meet other global security threats.

Officials who took part in the session or who were briefed on it would not give specific figures that were being discussed for growth goals. But their descriptions revealed a broad conclusion that has received increasing support in Washington: that regardless of the exact shape of President Bush’s new strategy on Iraq, the Army and Marine Corps are stretched thin by their commitments around the globe, in particular in Iraq.

That conclusion is being punctuated by the departure of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who officially leaves his post on Friday and who was long the champion of the idea that high technology and better intelligence could substitute for a bigger military...

[120mm]

Greater use of the Guard and Reserve? What are they going to do, draft our families for the rest of their natural lives, too? Maybe they can use our family cat to "walk point."

The active army needs to fix their personnel system. Go to any Active training post, and they are jam-packed with all ranks who have been there for years and never deployed anywhere.

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20 December Washington Post - Bush to Expand Size of Military by Peter Baker.

President Bush said today that he plans to expand the size of the U.S. military to meet the challenges of a long-term global war against terrorists, a response to warnings that sustained deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the armed forces to near the breaking point.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Bush said he has instructed newly sworn-in Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to report back to him with a plan to increase ground forces. The president gave no estimates about how many troops may be added but indicated that he agreed with suggestions in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill that the current military is stretched too thin to cope with the demands placed on it...