Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Question: If the Reserves / National Guard can train up to almost active forces level within 60 days, why bother with active forces in the army at all?

The pointless expeditionary stuff is being done by Marines, and the quickest relevant response to a crisis will come from the USAF and naval aviation anyway.


Why not upgrade the NG to THE army (with two weekends per month, one two-week exercise per year and by constitutional amendment no compulsory deployment outside of the 50 states without a declaration of war)?
Good idea, but we have a lot of people who already question why we have a Marine Corps. Others have floated the idea here and other places about maintaining the Spec Ops command as organized and relying on large reserve/ng for protracted, conventional high end conflict. My issue with that idea is finding enough qualified people to fill all the ranks. The Navy doesn't seem to have too much of a problem bringing in new tadpoles and raising frogman, but what about SF and Delta or CAG or whatever they are called now? Rangers have been young guys for years so that's easy.

Two weekends a month might be too disruptive for a normal life, especailly if one is already working a full-time job. If we were to go to a shorter work week like 32 hours it would probably be more attractive.