This morning on the Earlybird I saw a WSJ article where the CSA announced plans to look at acceleration of adding the additional troops to meet the objective of 2 years at home station for every one year deployed. There is concern that the 15 month deployments may cause additional attrition of experience. Mentioned was the usual prescritpion of enlistment/re-enlistment bonuses and promotions to support expansion.

Several other articles recently have caught my attention since I've been back. Some were on who serves, who wants to serve, who does not want to serve, why, etc (one of my favorites pointed to the small minority of congressional and other political leaders here and in the UK who have current familial ties to the military). Retired General Scales has been a huge proponent of drawing attention to readiness issues, and I think gets at it as a fundamental strategic problem. So here are a couple of questions I think would help us design a Human Resourcing Strategy to meet not just the military's increased personeel needs - not just in quantity, but also in quality (Quality in the categories of both the very best for public service & in terms of filling the ranks - a buddy was just flash PCS'd to Riley amid reports of soldier disturbances and the need for officers and NCOs on the ground immediately):

Does our Public Will support the required Public Sacrifice in the context of a emerging global power struggle amongst resurgent states, emerging non-state organizations (runs the gammut of groups here) which will compete on many different levels for limited resources (could be energy resources, water, minerals,etc) in an worl that is increasingly at risk to pandemics, global warming, and other environmental accelorators?

OK - I know that's a mouth full, but trying to frame the question show's how difficult captuing the public will to sacrifice their leisure time and cable T.V. can be. Short of an overwhleming cause that has a persitant gravitational theme that is politician proof, the only other recourse I see is to invest in people in such a way that it attracts and retains them. It becomes a standard of living and quality of life for not just them, but their families. Our Political culture seems to have a problem with this - people are risky and expensive (long term costs), and re-elections often require playing to somebody's bottom line. The Heinlein concept of public service for full citizenship (with the caveat of military or some other public service prior to holding office) is probably a non-starter.

Thoughts?