'Dueling Opinons'

Because that's what it's degenerated to. On the one hand we have the Spartans, on the other the sybaritic Persians...

I guess I'm a Persian, I got Steak every now and then in a couple of wars; I thought it was a good idea even as I ached for the kids who later scuffled through our garbage for something edible.

For Jill: If you believe that the original intent was to remain in Iraq long term, you may want to delve into that in more depth.

For Ski: You enjoy the Spartan existence -- does every other soldier you know believe in the same standard? How would our enlistment rate look were your view to prevail?

Seems to me to be a lot of "If I were God..." and that valid points made by folks who were there are sort of overlooked. The most egregious overlooking being in the area of how (to include methods and times), even if you dispense with contractors and the troops do the CSS jobs, you are going to feed the guys outside the wire in the COPs the same meals you are able to feed in the base camps. That doesn't even get into how you're going to retain, in a volunteer force, those Fobbits and / or REMFs if you forced them to eat like the line guys.

No one has yet come up with a viable alternative that will meet the needs and goals of the nation, the army -- or of today's troops who are very emphatically not Spartans, Roman Legionaires, Revolutionary Continentals or even post Civil War troopies. I'll wait for that.