[Mb-civic] Bob Herbert

[Mike Blaxill]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111005K.shtml

An Army Ready to Snap
    By Bob Herbert
    The New York Times

    Thursday 10 November 2005

    Have you heard what's been happening to the
military?

    Most people have heard that more than 2,000
American G.I.'s have been killed in the nonstop
meat grinder of Iraq. There was a flurry of
stories about that grim milestone in the last
week of October. (Since then the official number
of American deaths has jumped to at least 2,055,
and it continues to climb steadily.)

    More than 15,000 have been wounded in action.

    But the problems of the military go far
beyond the casualty figures coming out of the war
zone. The Army, for example, has been stretched
so taut since the Sept. 11 attacks, especially by
the fiasco in Iraq, that it's become like a
rubber band that may snap at any moment.

    President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld convinced
themselves that they could win the war in Iraq on
the cheap. They never sent enough troops to do
the job. Now the burden of trying to fight a long
and bitter war with too few troops is taking a
terrible toll on the men and women in uniform.

    Last December, the top general in the Army
Reserve warned that his organization was "rapidly
degenerating into a 'broken' force" because of
the Pentagon's "dysfunctional" policies and
demands placed on the Reserve by the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars.

    As one of my colleagues at The Times, David
Unger of the editorial board, wrote, "The Army's
commitments have dangerously and rapidly
expanded, while recruitment has plunged."

    Soldiers are being sent into the crucible of
Iraq for three and even four tours, a form of
Russian roulette that is unconscionable.

    "They feel like they're the only ones
sacrificing," said Paul Rieckhoff, a former Army
lieutenant who served in Iraq and is now the
executive director of Operation Truth, an
advocacy group for service members and veterans.

    "They're starting to look around and say,
'You know, it's me and my buddies over and over
again, and everybody else is living life
uninterrupted.' "

    When I asked Mr. Rieckhoff what he thought
was happening with the Army, he replied, "The
wheels are coming off."

    The Washington Post, in a lengthy article
last week, noted:

    "As sustained combat in Iraq makes it harder
than ever to fill the ranks of the all-volunteer
force, newly released Pentagon demographic data
show that the military is leaning heavily for
recruits on economically depressed, rural areas
where youths' need for jobs may outweigh the
risks of going to war."

    For those already in the Army, the price
being paid - apart from the physical toll of the
killed and wounded - is high indeed.

    Divorce rates have gone way up, nearly
doubling over the past four years. Long
deployments - and, especially, repeated
deployments - can take a vicious toll on personal
relationships.

    Chaplains, psychologists and others have long
been aware of the many dangerous factors that
accompany wartime deployment: loneliness,
financial problems, drug or alcohol abuse,
depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, the
problems faced by the parent left at home to care
for children, the enormous problem of adjusting
to the devastation of wartime injuries, and so
on.

    The Army is not just fighting a ruthless
insurgency in Iraq. It's fighting a rear-guard
action against these noncombat, guerrilla-like
conditions that threaten its own viability.

    There are reasons why parents all across
America are telling their children to run the
other way when military recruiters come to call.
There are reasons why so many lieutenants and
captains, fine young men and women, are heading
toward the exit doors at the first opportunity.

    A captain who is on active duty, and
therefore asked not to be identified by name,
told me yesterday:

    "The only reason I stayed in the Army was
because one colonel convinced me to do it. Other
than that, I would have walked. Basically, these
guys who are leaving have their high-powered
educations. Some are from West Point. They've
done their five years. Why should they stay and
go back to Iraq and die in a war that's just
going to keep on going?"

    Beyond that, he said, "Guys are not going to
stay in the Army when their wives are leaving
them."

    From the perspective of the troops, he said,
the situation in Iraq is perverse.

    He could find no upside. "You go to war," he
said, "and you could lose your heart, your mind,
your arms, your legs - but you cannot win. The
soldiers don't win."