Reading this article in USA Today, my jaw just dropped:

More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.

43,000 disabled troops deployed to War Zones against medical advice. Awesome. The article doesn't say how many of those 43000 were subsequently killed or further injured; even one of these disabled troopers dying because he couldn't run fast enough to get to cover in time, is something so horrible I can't quite get myself to contemplate it.

Last week, georgia10 had a diary which consisted only of a quote of a news story.  It was about soldiers who had gone to Iraq and been killed... but their MySpace pages, and presumably LiveJournals, blogs, etc., were still up on the web, not taken down because of the various companies' policies regarding user accounts.

The story hit me right between the eyes, and I decided to write a song about it.  You can download it for free here.  I'd be very interested in your thoughts on it, and on that situation in general.

(Lyrics down below....)

One of my normal morning tasks is to glance at my morning email from the Boston Globe.  That has consequences.  Thus even though I awoke this morning expecting to check my email and at best glance at dailykos without posting a diary, I again find myself impelled to write this.  I want people to be aware of two things in today's Globe that are signs of how broken the Army already is.  One is a news story entitled West Point grads exit service at high rate.   The other is an op ed by Lawrence Korb, a former Assistant SecDef in the Reagan administration entitled A troop readiness crisis.  

Think for just a moment of the impact of those two titles - not able to retain the future leadership, and the troops they should be leading not being ready for combat.  This is what Bush and company have wrought.  You can read the two pieces to understand and skip the rest of this diary.  Or you can follow below the jump as I explore them and and offer some observations of my own.

 Australia will likely lower recruitment standards to let overweight people and mild asthmatics join up as it tries to boost troop numbers to combat regional instability, the nation's top soldier said on Sunday.
  Australia's military is already stretched as it maintains deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands.
   It said in the past two years defense staffing levels remained 1,000 below target, while the number of people leaving the forces continued to increase to a high of almost 13 percent for the army and just over 12 percent for the navy. Defense surveys say 30 percent of military personnel are considering quitting.

150 soldiers in the Massachusetts-based 220th Transportation Company , 94th Regional Readiness Command , arrived at Camp Atterbury in Indiana just after midnight Friday for demobilization, they were told they would have to take the bus home -- an 18- to 20-hour ride. Furious families of the soldiers called the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy , a Massachusetts Democrat and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. ...

The senator dashed off a letter to Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey , pointing out that the Indianapolis International Airport was 38 miles from Camp Atterbury. ``With air service such a viable option, I don't believe putting these soldiers on buses for an extended overnight ride is the most appropriate way for the US Army to show its gratitude for their considerable sacrifices," Kennedy wrote.

Why were they told they'd have to hitch a ride on a bus to get home? >>>

My mother was renting a summer house last year near a military base.  She befriended several of the soldiers in a local restaurant. She became friends with one in particular who wanted to write to people "stateside" while in Iraq.

For obvious reasons, I will not identify where my mother was living  at the time or the base this soldier was assigned to.

She told him I would love to be a pen pal so he and I have been exchanging emails for some time now.  This is the first one I've received from him with any real information about what is going on in Iraq.

My reaction:

U.S. Military cannot provide our troops with drinking water?

U.S. Military cannot provide our troops with adequate plumbing facilities?

E coli in the drinking water?

How are our brave men and women of the armed forces supposed to fight the global war on terror living in these sub-standard conditions?

We know many soldiers do not have adequate body armor. Now we learn they don't have clean drinking water either.

Female troops serving in the Iraq war are reporting an insidious enemy in their own camps: fellow American soldiers who sexually assault them.

The women, ranging from enlisted soldiers to officers, have reported poor medical treatment, lack of counseling and incomplete criminal investigations by military officials. Some say they were threatened with punishment after reporting assaults.

 On my town's R&R board we still have the mouthbreathing minority claiming America's been through tough times and "this is nothing new."  With that comes the big push from these folks about having more kids. They want to know why others aren't having children, and label the childless "selfish." Vaguely reminiscent of some period of time Godwin's Law forbids me to discuss. ;)

While perusing the "Best of" Craigslist today, I came across this anonymous post. Thought it was worth sharing here. Can't vouch for it being truthful.  With anonymity comes the opportunity to pretend. However, this seems real to me. Judge for yourselves. . .

I want to inform all of you, first hand, what I find most of those brave men and women find truly demoralizing.  I'll give you a hint.  Dissent is nowhere on this list.

Wow!  The Pentagon is now admitting what we & every military leader (including Wes Clark) has stated:  this simply can't go on.  The military will break if we keep asking them to bend for us in Iraq.

Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a "thin green line" that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.

Can NOT break the insurgency:

The key passage to me comes in the 2nd paragraph:

...the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency.

The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin [body armor] and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.

Academy Ends a 155-Year Tradition
After Sunday, Marines will no longer guard military college or carry out ceremonial duties

Since just a few years after the Naval Academy's founding in 1845, Marines have guarded the military college and performed ceremonial duties. ... The 48 Marines of the U.S. Naval Academy Company, Marine Barracks, Washington, are being reassigned to installations at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Twentynine Palms, Calif.

The decision to remove them was made at the highest levels of the Navy and the Marine Corps, officials said, as part of a program to reposition Marines to the combat units. The decision was partly influenced by the global war on terrorism but had been in the works before that, said Marine Corps spokeswoman Lt. Elle Helmer.
...

The decision to remove the Marine company from the academy was a harder one because of their tradition in guarding the college, performing ceremonial duties at funerals, raising flags and guarding the crypt of John Paul Jones.

What this Baltimore Sun article doesn't make crystal clear is addressed in the headline of the terse, three-paragraph account from the Los Angeles Times: Marine Sentries at Naval Academy Sent to Iraq.

I confess to a naïve sentimentalism as an anti-this-war, distrustful-of-military-solutions, supposedly America-hating progressive liberal: I get as easily hooked by patriotic bait as the most hard-core American Legionnaire. Even though I consider our national anthem melodically challenged and lyrically unintelligible, I can be stopped dead in my tracks at its playing. A 21-gun salute at a soldier's funeral undoes me. Reading the words of the Declaration of Independence brings a lump to my throat. And especially these days, reading the quaint Bill of Rights can bring me to my knees.

In short, I'm a sucker for my country and many of its most gaudy traditions, which brings me to today's Naval Academy-Marine story. Until this morning, I'd never heard of this tradition, but the fact that it's been around for 155 years (probably coupled with the reference to John Paul Jones) immediately made me want to keep it. Simply put, some small symbolic traditions are worthy of preservation and this one, rationally or irrationally, seems to be me to be one of them. Is it the best use of Marine personnel? Probably not. Could they be more useful in Iraq? Well ... it depends on your definition of "useful," I suppose; one could argue that an American flag might be more useful in cleaning a Marine's boot off, but few would recommend it.

It strikes me that this story carried such weight with me for two reasons. First, in the symbolism of its symbolism, it concerns me on a strategic ideological level. Why aren't conservatives more up in arms over this? This is exactly the kind of sentimental patriotic hoo-hah I've come to expect conservatives to conserve. Yet to scrape 48 more bodies up to toss into the body-chipper of Iraq, they're willing to scrap a century and half of tradition? Please tell me we aren't that desperate for military personnel. Please. Tell me that.

Secondly, I'm surely viewing this piece of news in light of all the other rapid undoing of the fabric of our democracy. Like most liberals, I'm not unaware of this country's often sordid past, from arming banana republic dictators to strong-arming on behalf of multi-national corporations to stealing the land of this continent's original inhabitants. Lip service is something we have perfected to an art. Still - and again, I suspect, like most liberals - I admit an allegiance to our professed beliefs as a nation in justice, equality and the dignity of the individual human life. And what this administration has created in me to a degree unparalleled in my lifetime is a great grief over the seemingly insurmountable chasm between our aspirations as a nation and our actions.

I want us to be as great and good in reality as we are in our professed ideals, and we need small reminders - like 150 years of guarding the crypt of John Paul Jones - to keep us grounded and seeing true. I'm coming to believe that if conservatives can't see this and refuse to conserve, it ironically may be up to progressives in the end to do so. I'm thinking here of a whole new category of political affiliation, of liberals who look to the future while holding on to the best of the past. Call it preservative progressivism or something like that. Whatever its categorization, I'm in it, and I'm now officially mourning the deployment of four dozen anonymous Marines, praying for their safety and hoping to see them back where they belong - at the gates of Annapolis and the crypt of John Paul Jones - carrying on a miniscule but important tradition.

more, more

Link

General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, issued the following statement:

"This study is but the latest example of the Administration's appalling disregard for the welfare and safety of our troops. President Bush's rhetoric doesn't match the actions of his Administration, and unnecessary combat fatalities are the result.

"This is a clear case where Congressional investigation is warranted. When were the needs for additional protection first expressed? Who knew what and when? And, why weren't the necessary steps taken to protect our soldiers? The American people deserve no less than full accountability and assurances that going forward our troops will not face unnecessary risks or danger caused by lack of resources, oversight or commitment from Washington."

ksuwildkat says my contention that the US Military is breaking is the half empty view and s/he put the "half full" case. In it K says "Training and equipment couldn't be better."

I disagree and I think that if K has evidence to back that assertion up, I want to see it. I want to see attrition rates, delivery rates and reports across the board that support it, from thumbtacks to tank tracks. I don't think they are there.

Three months ago, I wrote that the war in Iraq was wrecking the U.S. Army, and since then the evidence has only mounted, steeply. Faced with repeated failures to meet its recruitment targets, the Army has had to lower its standards dramatically.

Why lower-quality recruits lead to a lower-quality Army, below.