The Status Of Our Military: Poor & Strained

Army Strained To Near Its Breaking Point

According to this report, the status of our Army, as well as the other branches of the military, is so poor that we do not have enough equipment, barracks billets, and mental health services for those that require it, and those willing to face the military's consternation and resistance to treating mental health issues. Additionally, despite at least a decade or two of requiring social workers and ombudsman support, the overwhelming failure of the Army (and probably all the other branches) to address family problems arising out of deployment and the stresses of military membership.

Amid the camaraderie of Fort Hood's military community, however, the signs of war's stress are evident. Consider the acute shortage of barracks space. Because the Army is restructuring itself into smaller, 3,500-4,500 troop brigades instead of larger, 10,000-12,000 troop divisions at the same time it is pulling units back from Cold War bases in Europe and Asia, and sending units repeatedly to Iraq and Afghanistan, the shuffling of personnel is intense.

So Fort Hood has resorted to "hot-cotting." Units no longer have permanent designated barracks that they lock up and leave when they go abroad; as they deploy to the wars now, soldiers must put their personal items in storage and surrender barracks rooms and sleeping berths to new units or to those just retuning from combat.

Fort Hood is also seeing a sharp increase in demand for marriage-enrichment counseling for spouses who cannot understand why their partners are willing to leave them for a second, third, or even fourth combat tour. An Army survey revealed that soldiers are 50 percent more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress if they serve more than one tour.

Reliable figures are not available for the mental stress put on soldiers in the 11 Army brigades that have served three or more yearlong tours in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. However, according to a Pentagon health study released in January, the rate of binge drinking in the Army ballooned by 30 percent between 2002 and 2005, and the increase in illicit drug use nearly doubled between 1998 and 2005.

The number of soldiers who killed themselves in Iraq and Kuwait from 2004 to 2005 nearly doubled, rising to 22 from 12. Because of the strains of multiple yearlong deployments, whispers about affairs and divorces are also heard frequently at Fort Hood.

"We've seen indicators in our mental health care system that some families simply do not understand why their loved ones want to go back downrange and join their peers in Iraq and Afghanistan again, even though as a soldier I absolutely recognize that as part of the warrior ethos of not wanting to leave your comrades in battle," said a senior officer in the 1st Cavalry Division.

Or consider for a moment the peculiar lack of tanks and armored Humvees in the Fort Hood motor pools. An acute and worsening equipment shortage has robbed soldiers of stateside training opportunities and decimated the readiness of units that have not gone to Iraq or Afghanistan.

For the past few years, units such as the 4th Infantry Division have been forced to leave behind much of their equipment in Iraq for use by their replacements such as the 1st Cavalry. That leaves the soldiers little equipment to train on when they return to Fort Hood.

The Army and Marine Corps have also depleted their stocks of equipment pre-positioned overseas, which will hamper their ability to respond quickly to emergencies elsewhere. That same equipment shuffle has left nearly 90 percent of Army National Guard units in the United States unready to respond to domestic emergencies, according to a recent report by a congressional commission.

If anything, equipment shortages are arguably worse today than in 1980, when the Army was recovering from Vietnam. Judging by their recent actions, Iran, North Korea, and other potential adversaries have taken note. "On the equipment side of the equation, the Army is pretty much broken," said Tom McNaugher, the longtime Army expert at the Rand think tank.

Meanwhile, deploying units such as the 1st Cavalry Division routinely receive their full allotment of equipment and personnel only just before they go to Iraq or Afghanistan, and sometimes only after they arrive in the war theater. In drafting plans to restock the 1st Cavalry Division after its scheduled return from Iraq later this year, officers acknowledge that they already see numerous situations in which the requisite equipment may not be on hand to complete training for the division before it gets sent back into battle.

Patterns of War Shift in Iraq Amid U.S. Buildup

Clearly, part of the reason that our military is in such bad shape is that we do not have a clear mission and focus for our efforts. The other reasons--the largest portion of reasons--is the failed management of our resources under the Bush banner.

Nearly two months into the new security push in Baghdad, there has been some success in reducing the number of death squad victims found crumpled in the streets each day.

And while the overall death rates for all of Iraq have not dropped significantly, largely because of devastating suicide bombings, a few parts of the capital have become calmer as some death squads have decided to lie low.

But there is little sign that the Baghdad push is accomplishing its main purpose: to create an island of stability in which Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs and Kurds can try to figure out how to run the country together. There has been no visible move toward compromise on the main dividing issues, like regional autonomy and more power sharing between Shiites and Sunnis.

For American troops, Baghdad has become a deadlier battleground as they have poured into the capital to confront Sunni and Shiite militias on their home streets. The rate of American deaths in the city over the first seven weeks of the security plan has nearly doubled from the previous period, though it has stayed roughly the same over all, decreasing in other parts of the country as troops have focused on the capital.

Radical Shiite Cleric Calls on Iraqi Forces to Unite Against the U.S. Military

The power of Moktada al-Sadr to muster this kind of demonstration in the streets demonstrates the overall failure of our political, diplomatic and military efforts in Iraq, as well as our failure with Iran, since al-Sadr is operating out of Iran these days. It demonstrates that the Iraqis have not been productive in negotiating a political solution to forming an effective form of government (mostly because of US puppeteering), or resolving the conflicts between Shi'ite and Sunni factions. But it is our troops that are being killed on a daily basis and our troops coming home in body bags, leaving widows/widowers and their children to mourn the loss of heroic soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.

But Bush has prayed for them, so everything is okay. He doesn't see anything objectionable about continuing a failed policy and a failed military strategy for his illegal invasion and occupation of a nation that never posed a threat to our security. Instead, we are lining up our "ducks" so that we can invade Iran. While we keep hearing that we have no intention for invading Iran, all the signs are present for such an invasion.

Al=Sadr's demonstration of political and clerical power is clear evidence that a majority of Iraqis do not want the US troops in Iraq. Our need to withdraw and allow Iraqis to resolve their own issues has never been made clearer by external voices... and since Bush and company refuse to listen to internal US voices, it may be that he will hear these voices. However, it is more likely that he will use these voices to justify even more militancy, more troop surges, and a continuation of our failed efforts. But it is our military that is suffering because Bush refuses to hear those voices against the continued occupation of Iraq... and our ability to defend our nation that is drastically impaired.

Moktada al-Sadr, the rebellious Shiite cleric and power broker, exhorted Iraqi security forces on Sunday to unite with his militiamen against the American military in Diwaniya, an embattled southern city in Iraq where fighting has raged for three days.

Mr. Sadr’s statement did not explicitly call for armed struggle against the Americans, but it still represented his most forceful condemnation of the American-led occupation since he went underground after the start of an intensified Baghdad security crackdown nearly two months ago. It also came as his followers streamed out of Baghdad and other cities to join a mass protest in southern Iraq organized by Mr. Sadr’s aides to denounce the American occupation of Iraq on Monday, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. The arteries winding to Najaf, the holy city where Mr. Sadr has his headquarters, were clogged with vehicles carrying protesters.

Mr. Sadr’s call for resistance came as the American military announced the deaths of 10 soldiers in five attacks over the weekend, the highest two-day total for American fatalities since the new security plan began Feb. 14. Five soldiers were wounded. Violence against Iraqis continued unabated on Sunday, with at least 43 people killed or found dead. Seventeen were killed and 26 wounded in a car bombing near a hospital and mosque in the insurgent enclave of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad.

Army Is Cracking Down on Deserters

Not only is the Army lowering enlistment standards, allowing less capable candidates to join the Army, it is now cracking down on those that go UA (unauthorized absence) and/or desert rather than return to yet another tour of duty in Iraq. These are signs that the Army is having a morale problem. Historically, whenever the Army (and other military branches) encounter a problem filling billets, they resort to lowering enlistment criteria and reach down to the lowest rungs of our educational ladders. The Army also has a history of cracking down on UA/desertion under two conditions: the reduction of forces and/or the reduction of morale among the active duty troops serving in the field. The same type of enforcement effort was seen during Vietnam when a lot of vets were coming home and voicing opposition to the war effort. It was then that the Army increased its enforcement and prosecution of its unauthorized absence regulations.

It never seems to occur to military leaders to examine the cause of these issues and find a way to address these causation issues rather than using fear and intimidation to address desertion, absence and morale issues.

But it is clear that the strains on our military are beginning to take serious tolls on our ability to keep it together. The morale problem is a strong sign that things are not being reported to us in a genuine fashion and that our troops are bearing an unfair burden without relief. The fact that some of our troops are on their third or fourth rotation to combat areas is another significant sign that morale, and our ability to maintain the mission, is being undermined and reported inaccurately.

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS....WITHDRAW THEM NOW!

Army prosecutions of desertion and other unauthorized absences have risen sharply in the last four years, resulting in thousands more negative discharges and prison time for both junior soldiers and combat-tested veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Army records show.

The increased prosecutions are meant to serve as a deterrent to a growing number of soldiers who are ambivalent about heading — or heading back — to Iraq and may be looking for a way out, several Army lawyers said in interviews. Using courts-martial for these violations, which before 2002 were treated mostly as unpunished nuisances, is a sign that active-duty forces are being stretched to their limits, military lawyers and mental health experts said.

“They are scraping to get people to go back, and people are worn out,” said Dr. Thomas Grieger, a senior Navy psychiatrist. Though there are no current studies to show how combat stress affects desertion rates, Dr. Grieger cited several examples of soldiers absconding or refusing to return to Iraq because of psychiatric reasons brought on by wartime deployments.

At an Army base in Alaska last year, for example, “there was one guy who literally chopped off his trigger finger with an axe to prevent his deployment,” Dr. Grieger said in an interview.

The Army prosecuted desertion far less often in the late 1990s, when desertions were more frequent, than it does now, when there are comparatively fewer.

From 2002 through 2006, the average annual rate of Army prosecutions of desertion tripled compared with the five-year period from 1997 to 2001, to roughly 6 percent of deserters, from 2 percent, Army data shows.

Between these two five-year spans — one prewar and one during wartime — prosecutions for similar crimes, like absence without leave or failing to appear for unit missions, have more than doubled, to an average of 390 per year from an average of 180 per year, Army data shows.

In total, the Army since 2002 has court-martialed twice as many soldiers for desertion and other unauthorized absences as it did on average each year between 1997 and 2001. Deserters are soldiers who leave a post or fail to show up for an assignment with the intent to stay away. Soldiers considered absent without leave, or AWOL, which presumes they plan to return, are classified as deserters and dropped from a unit’s rolls after 30 days.

Most soldiers who return from unauthorized absences are punished and discharged. Few return to regular duty.

Officers said the crackdown reflected an awareness by top Army and Defense Department officials that desertions, which occurred among more than 1 percent of the active-duty force in 2000 for the first time since the post-Vietnam era, were in a sustained upswing again after ebbing in 2003, the first year of the Iraq war.

At the same time, the increase highlights a cycle long known to Army researchers: as the demand for soldiers increases during a war, desertions rise and the Army tends to lower enlistment standards, recruiting more people with questionable backgrounds who are far more likely to become deserters.

In the 2006 fiscal year, 3,196 soldiers deserted, the Army said, a figure that has been climbing since the 2004 fiscal year, when 2,357 soldiers absconded. In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, 871 soldiers deserted, a rate that, if it stays on pace, would produce 3,484 desertions for the fiscal year, an 8 percent increase over 2006.

The Army said the desertion rate was within historical norms, and that the surge in prosecutions, which are at the discretion of unit commanders, was not a surprise given the impact that absent soldiers can have during wartime.

“The nation is at war, and the Army treats the offense of desertion more seriously,” Maj. Anne D. Edgecomb, an Army spokeswoman, said. “The Army’s leadership will take whatever measures they believe are appropriate if they see a continued upward trend in desertion, in order to maintain the health of the force.”

Army studies and interviews also suggest a link between the rising rate of desertions and the expanding use of moral waivers to recruit people with poor academic records and low-level criminal convictions. At least 1 in 10 deserters surveyed after returning to the Army from 2002 to mid-2004 required a waiver to enter the service, a report by the Army Research Institute found.

“We’re enlisting more dropouts, people with more law violations, lower test scores, more moral issues,” said a senior noncommissioned officer involved in Army personnel and recruiting. “We’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get people to join.” (Army officials agreed to discuss the issue on the condition that they not be quoted by name.)

The officer said the Army National Guard last week authorized 34 states and Guam to enlist the lowest-ranking group of eligible recruits, those who scored between 16 and 30 on the armed services aptitude test. Federal law bars recruits who scored lower than 16 from enlisting.

Desertions, while a chronic problem for the Army, are nowhere near as common as they were at the height of the Vietnam War. From 1968 to 1971, for instance, about 5 percent of enlisted men deserted.

But the rate of desertion today, after four years of fighting two ground wars, is “being taken much more seriously because we were losing so many soldiers out of the Army that there was a recognized need to attack the problem from a different way,” said an Army criminal defense lawyer.

In interviews, the lawyer and two other Army lawyers each traced the spike in prosecutions to a policy change at the beginning of 2002 that required commanders to welcome back soldiers who deserted or went AWOL.

Before that, most deserters, who are often young, undistinguished soldiers who have fallen out of favor with their sergeants, were given administrative separations and sent home with other-than-honorable discharges.

The new policy, ordered by the secretary of the army, effectively eliminated the incentive among squad sergeants to urge returning AWOL soldiers to stay away for at least 30 days, when they would be classified as deserters under the old rules and dropped from the roll.

But some unit commanders, wary of scrutiny from their superiors, go out of their way to improperly keep deserted soldiers on their rosters, and on the Army’s payroll, two officers said in interviews. To counter that, the Army adopted a new policy in January 2005 requiring commanders to formally report absent soldiers within 48 hours.

Such problems are costly. From October 2000 to February 2002, the Army improperly paid more than $6.6 million to 7,544 soldiers who had deserted or were otherwise absent, according to a July 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office.

Most deserters list dissatisfaction with Army life or family problems as primary reasons for their absence, and most go AWOL in the United States. But since 2003, 109 soldiers have been convicted of going AWOL or deserting war zones in Iraq or Afghanistan, usually during their scheduled two-week leaves in the United States, Army officials said.