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Banned
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Originally Posted by Seaver
Host, I doubt you've ever spent more than 4 minutes talking to anyone in the military... how do you know anything about it's last legs?
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I guess I been readin' the wrong stuff, Seaver. I should have relied on enthusiastic anecdotal opinions from individual military members, who, despite their parochial views and the narrowness of their exposure to the miitary's entire situation, since nearly every one is told only what he or she needs to know to accomplish their mission (it's called compartmentalization), everything I'm posting below, in comparison, is probably invalid and next to useless? Right?
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http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...6888-3,00.html
America's Broken-Down Army
Thursday, Apr. 05, 2007 By MARK THOMPSON
...Even Colin Powell — a retired Army general, onetime Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Bush's first Secretary of State — acknowledges that after spending nearly six years fighting a small war in Afghanistan and four years waging a medium-size war in Iraq, the service whose uniform he wore for 35 years is on the ropes. "The active Army," Powell said in December, "is about broken."
Bush warned that if Democrats in Congress did not pass a bill to fund the war on his terms, "the price of that failure will be paid by our troops and their loved ones." But they are already paying a price for decisions he has made, and the larger costs are likely to be borne for at least a generation....
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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/27/...rchitect-korb/
July 27, 2007
Escalation Architect Says Calling The Army Broken ‘Is One Of The Most Offensive Statements To Make’
During testimony before the House Armed Services Committee today, the Center for American Progress’ military expert and co-author of Strategic Reset, Lawrence Korb, challenged Congress to address the growing crisis of troop morale and readiness in the U.S. forces as a result of the Bush administration’s failures in Iraq. Korb argued the Army is “broken” and in need of immediate repair:
I say to those people who want to keep up this surge indefinitely, if you have the courage of your convictions, then call for reinstatement of the draft. Because our volunteer Army was not designed, as Gen. Abizaid said, for the long war.
Escalation architect ret. Gen. Jack Keane and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) tag-teamed in an effort to downplay the diminished strength of the military. Keane said calling the Army broken “is one of the most offensive statements we can make.”
Hunter, ignorant of the views of numerous national security experts, said to Korb, “I don’t think that any of those people you’ve quoted — did Gen. McCaffrey ever say, ‘the Army is broken?’” Korb responded, “I will give you the exact quote, <h2>‘The ground combat capability of the U.S. Army forces is shot.’”</h2> Watch it:
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2005Jan5.html
Jan. 5, 2005
- Lt. Gen. James R. “Ron” Helmly: In a “memo to other military leaders [Helmly expressed] “deepening concern” about the continued readiness of his troops, who have been used heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and warning that his branch of 200,000 soldiers “is rapidly degenerating into a ‘broken’ force.”"
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4649066.stm
Thursday, 26 January 2006
- Former Defense Secretary William Perry: The Bush administration has “failed adequately to assess the size of force and equipment needed in post-invasion Iraq, creating “a real risk of ‘breaking the force’.”
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n2266367.shtml
Dec. 14, 2006
- Chief Of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker: “Over the last five years, the sustained strategic demand … is placing a strain on the Army’s all-volunteer force,” Schoomaker told the commission in a Capitol Hill hearing. “At his pace … we will break the active component” unless reserves can be called up more to help, Schoomaker said.
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...120401347.html
U.S. Army Battling To Save Equipment
Gear Piles Up at Depots, Awaiting Repair
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 5, 2006; Page A01
ANNISTON, Ala. -- Field upon field of more than 1,000 battered M1 tanks, howitzers and other armored vehicles sit amid weeds here at the 15,000-acre Anniston Army Depot -- the idle, hulking formations symbolic of an Army that is wearing out faster than it is being rebuilt.
The Army and Marine Corps have sunk more than 40 percent of their ground combat equipment into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to government data. An estimated $17 billion-plus worth of military equipment is destroyed or worn out each year, blasted by bombs, ground down by desert sand and used up to nine times the rate in times of peace. The gear is piling up at depots such as Anniston, waiting to be repaired.
At Anniston Army Depot in Alabama, broken-down tanks and other armored vehicles have created a huge backlog. (Photos By Ann Scott Tyson -- The Washington Post)
The depletion of major equipment such as tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and especially helicopters and armored Humvees has left many military units in the United States without adequate training gear, officials say. Partly as a result of the shortages, many U.S. units are rated "unready" to deploy, officials say, raising alarm in Congress and concern among military leaders at a time when Iraq strategy is under review by the White House and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group....
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/op...yt&oref=slogin
Editorial
Structural Failures
Published: November 13, 2007
...Although the crash in Missouri on Nov. 2 is still being studied, initial reports suggest that the plane suffered structural failure and disintegrated in the air. That F-15 was built in 1980, but some of the planes in the fleet are more than 30 years old. The problem is that the Air Force’s chosen replacement, the F-22 stealth fighter, is both extremely expensive and already out of date — designed originally for air-to-air combat against Soviet style MIG fighters during the cold war.
American taxpayers have a right to insist that the Pentagon make sounder choices in the future.
The most immediate problem is digging out from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has borne much of the burden, and it will need a lot of help to replace war-worn equipment and replenish a strained and war-weary force.
As it has struggled to meet recruiting targets, the Army has had to compromise personnel standards. Last year, 15 percent of recruits needed waivers because they didn’t meet requirements on education, medical and lack of a criminal record. That number has risen to 18 percent so far this year. Meanwhile, a large percentage of West Point graduates — the elite corps from which Army officers are drawn — are leaving active duty as soon as their required time is up......
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Quote:
http://www.slate.com/id/2163107/
war stories: Military analysis.
Broken Arrow
How the U.S. Army broke in Iraq.
By Phillip Carter
Posted Friday, March 30, 2007, at 6:59 PM ET
The U.S. Army broke in the 1970s in the wake of the Vietnam War and the end of the draft. But if you ask officers who served during that period, few will recall the sounds of creaking planks, snapping beams, or rupturing buildings as the institution disintegrated. Instead, the crumbling occurred over time, becoming apparent only decades later.
Today's Army is stretched past its breaking point by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sounds of its collapse may be faint enough for policymakers in Washington to ignore, but they are there. An exodus of junior and midlevel personnel illustrates the crisis. Their exit has forced the Army to apply tourniquets like "stop loss" to halt the hemorrhaging, and it has also dropped its standards for recruiting and retention.
Four years into the war, the Army still has too few troops to persevere in Iraq and Afghanistan and too few deployed in each place to win. To surge its forces in Iraq, the Army has dipped deep into its well, returning units back to combat after less than a year at home, leaving many with little time to train incoming soldiers and come together as a team....
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