Ken:

All your points can't be argued with, at least not by me. But, just for a small war like Afghanistan, could you get away with a lesser level of training for a unit that was just going to go there for that conflict? I don't mean short small unit combat training, to the contrary on things like that. I mean things like chem warfare training, battalion or multi battalion level operations, things like that that may not have that much use against the Taliban.

I hope you get what I mean. These are just musings by a civilian so any specifics I come up with don't mean much. What I mean I guess is would a volunteer unit meant specifically for Afghanistan have to match the full range and level of training of a regular unit?