Volunteers!!

[carl]

So what am I saying... if you have the command and leadership cadre in place you can possibly ship a newly trained battalion off to war in six months.

If you don't have the trained cadre then quite frankly I can't see how it could be done.

Exactly. I knew you were the guy to ask. It couldn't be done unless the leaders were available and the standing forces, be they regular, NG or Reserve would most likely have to provide those. That might require structuring the force with that in mind, or not. That is effectively what we did in WWII and the Civil War etc. Joshua Chamberlain got his training from self study and Ames, a West Point guy. No matter if you built up your force with volunteer regiments or enlarged regular units, the problem of supplying them with leaders would be the same.

The benefits to this kind of thing are both societal and military. Societal in that regular people who want to do the job would be going, not regular soldiers. Military in that the units and at least the lower ranks would be there for a particular job and thereby by the unit would be there for a particular job. That might (or not, you guys know better than me) cut down on the career centric coin phenomanom (sic) that so cripples us today. An additional benefit would be sidestepping the military personnel system, which I read over and over is poison to a small war effort.

Imagine the benefits of a unit that was created to serve in Afghanistan for 3 years straight after being trained up. Then when that time was done, it would be disbanded and if another was needed another could be formed. The guys would be told the terms of service so no complaint coming in fulfilling it. A unit staying in place for 3 years would be great.

I know this may be impossible but we did it in the past and it worked. Human nature doesn't change so I don't see and fundamental reason, human nature type fundamental, it couldn't work again.

Also for something like Afghanistan, you wouldn't have to recreate a brigade combat team. Since it would be a temporary volunteer unit, you could tailor it to the need.

As far as the Grey's Scouts were concerned as a mounted infantry unit they drew their cadre from volunteers from across the army. I would think that in the US such a unit could be put together in a jiffy with the fully infantry trained manpower requiring only the 'mounted' aspect of training to be added... and the horses of course.

Given your experience, do you think a unit like that would be useful in Afghanistan?