Cross-Posted at Democrashield
Our military is at the breaking point. Recruitment is down, suicides are up, tours are extended, all at the expense of brave soldiers who have already given to much to their country.
More on this after the jump...
The problem began a few years back, when we began to hear stories like this:
For the first time since 2001, the Army began the fiscal year in October with only 18.4 percent of the year’s target of 80,000 active-duty recruits already in the pipeline. That amounts to less than half of last year’s figure and falls well below the Army’s goal of 25 percent.
Meanwhile, the Army is rushing incoming recruits into training as quickly as it can. Compared with last year, it has cut by 50 percent the average number of days between the time a recruit signs up and enters boot camp.
Since then, the situation has gone downhill:
Nearly 12 percent of Army recruits who entered basic training this year needed a special waiver for those with criminal records, a dramatic increase over last year and 2 1/2 times the percentage four years ago, according to new Army statistics obtained by the Globe.
[...]
Army officials acknowledge privately that the increase in moral waivers reflects the difficulty of signing up sufficient numbers of recruits to sustain an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq; the Army fell short of its monthly recruiting goals in May and June.
In fact, military recruitment has gotten so bad that the Army has resorted to bribing new recruits:
After failing to meet its recruiting goal for two consecutive months, the Army is expected to announce it met its target for July.
And officials are offering a new $20,000 bonus to recruits who sign up by the end of next month.
[...]
[T]he Army Recruiting Command said it is offering a $20,000 bonus for recruits who sign up by Sept. 30. The bonus applies to new recruits with no prior military service who enlist for at least two years and agree to report to basic training within 30 days of enlistment, said a statement posted Monday on the Army’s Web site.
And now we’re hearing this:
Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring.
The Army’s 38 available combat units are deployed, just returning home or already tapped to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, leaving no fresh troops to replace five extra brigades that President Bush sent to Baghdad this year, according to interviews and military documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
[...]
When asked what units will fill the void in the coming spring if any need to be replaced, officials give a grim shake of the head, shrug of the shoulders or a palms-up, empty-handed gesture.
"The demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply," the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, said last week. "Right now we have in place deployment and mobilization policies that allow us to meet the current demands. If the demands don’t go down over time, it will become increasingly difficult for us to provide the trained and ready forces" for other missions.
It’s undeniable: our military is at the breaking point. But there’s hope—hundreds of thousands (if not more) of fit, young, able Americans who support the war wholeheartedly and believe that our nation’s very survival depends on winning it. Sounds like the perfect group of people to make up our next troop rotation, right?
One hitch: these are young Republicans I’m talking about, and most of them aren’t anywhere near enlisting.
But, why not?
They are the war’s biggest proponents, biggest cheerleaders, biggest defenders. Go to any College Republicans or Young America’s Foundation events and listen to them talk about how important Iraq is for our country, for our security, for our very way of life.
So why haven’t they enlisted? Good question. Max Blumenthal tried to find an answer, but all he got were excuses.
They have better things to do. They’re fighting the war of ideas. What utter nonsense—the idea that, somehow, writing a blog post or participating in a debate or campaigning is anywhere even comparable to serving in uniform. Way to cheapen the service of those with the guts to actually go out there and fight your war.
And it is their war—they support it with their votes, with their rhetoric, with their words. They elected the President and the politicians who sent hundreds of thousands of their fellow Americans into the deserts of Iraq—over 3700 of them have come home in flag-draped coffins.
And all the while these young Republicans get to lead their comfortable lives, living in their comfortable dorm rooms on their comfortable college campuses, pretending that they’re somehow contributing to a war going on thousands of miles away.
They have no conceptualization of war, of what things are actually like in Iraq, and they don’t care—to them, this is little more than a game, little more than a glorified chess match. The war isn’t men and women in uniform, it isn’t bloody battles and fiery explosions, it isn’t our soldier’s blood and sweat and tears—it’s an abstract idea, a series of talking points, a tool to be dragged out and used as a bludgeon against their ideological enemies.
Do I think they’re cowards? No. Not any more than anyone else who doesn’t enlist. It takes a unique kind of person to sign up for military service, to be willing to sacrifice that much for their country.
But I do think they’re hypocrites—massive, dishonest, shameful hypocrites. If any of them actually believed all the things they said about Iraq—our very way of life is at stake, our very future depends on winning, etc.—then they wouldn’t hesitate to sign up and go fight. And since they aren’t, doesn’t it show that all of these ideas and beliefs and convictions they say they have are little more than empty, hollow, chest-thumping rhetoric?
Don’t feed us this nonsense about the war of ideas. The reason so many people have turned against this war is because we’re not getting anywhere by fighting it. But maybe if we had hundreds of thousands of eager young recruits to add to the battle, maybe then we could actually make some progress. And you know what? You wouldn’t need to win the war of ideas if we actually started getting somewhere in Iraq, because what you call fighting the war of ideas is nothing more than trying to spin a failing war.
And in the end, I’m sure there’s some worn-out Marine somewhere in Iraq who would love to have you take his place so he can go home and see his family again.