Phil,

At this point (probably by 2005), breaking the Army was a feature, not a bug. The administration got itself into a war which they couldn't win, so they went to a 'kick the can down the road to the next administration' strategy.

Given that, the administration both doesn't give a flying f*ck about what they destroy, and doesn't mind handing over a totally trashed situation to the Obama administration.

First off, SPC Buzzell is making a huge mistake if he doesn't file a delay and exemption packet with HRC-STL. He has two "bites at that apple" and then a final appeal to Army G-1.

I would also suggest he initiate a Congressional ... just for visibility. Even if he ultimately loses (he has better odds of winning), he may be able to "run down the clock" on his remaining MSO so as to make the whole matter moot.

As a persuasive writer yourself, I'm sure you realize that Buzzell or an attorney/advisor could have a "field day" with the delay and exemption packet. By merely suggesting the possibility of "undue influence" because of his past writings/celebrity/opinions even the folks at Human Resources Command will take his claim really seriously.

There are many great IRR resources on the web. The Command TOC, a site written by former CPT Kevin O'Meara (who beat the '04 recall), is a wealth of information ... as is the "IRR Watch" group on Google.

The unknown "fact" about the IRR recall is that the Army needs a "body" in about 120 days. By exercising your due process rights, they often move along and look elsewhere.

IRR, that's a great breakdown. Something that I'm going to have to tuck away into my toolkit if it ever comes down to it, when I get out after my stoploss/2nd deployment.

For some reason the quote that comes to mind is, "This is nothing against you, it's completely professional..."

IRR,

Good suggestions. I helped one soldier, who was still working through combat stress from his first deployment, go through the delay/exemption process. I was surprised to find how well the system worked, and very impressed by the Army G1 and USARC people I talked to.

However, in this case, I think Colby plans to go.

The inability of the Army to predict its manpower needs, or maintain living quarters, or keep either the troops in Iraq or the troops at home, (or, in fact neither, the actual state) properly equipped, or care for the wounded, is a sign, not so much of a broken Army, but a problem at the General Staff level. It would be simple to call it cowardice, that the Generals haven't the courage to go before Congress and tell the truth, but that may be exactly what it is not.

Most of those geanerals who could tell the Congress the truth probably assume that that is a quick path to their being removed from stop loss and transferred to some final duty station with instructions to retire. At that point they can move into the overpaid consultant ranks, and enjoy their view of the war from the ranks of the unengaged.

THE WAR WON'T END

and

THE ADMINISTRATION WON'T LISTEN.

and

The men they lead will have gained nothing except another commander who may, or may not, care about the real problems. So they soldier on, trying to solve the problems they can solve and do what they can for their troops.

BECAUSE

The administration already knows what its real manpower, capital, equipment, and medical needs really are, and how much money it will cost. It also knows the political cost of a draft, major tax increases, reacquiring military bases sold to the favored bidder, and in general admitting how badly they screwed the whole system up. The administration also knows that the democrat who takes the oath as president on 20 Jan 2009 knows that and will be compelled to take those actions. Then the Republicans can run against those same Democrats for reinstituting the draft, raising taxes, and taking all that private property by eminent domain.

It's called winning by losing. Don't do the right thing, make the other party do the right thing and then attack them for it.

Forty percent of the voting public will agree with them.

Will forty percent of the normally nonvoting public find such duplicity repugnant enough to stand up and vote against those republicans?

That is the question.

He knew what he was getting into when he joined the military. We all did. IRR is a fact of life, and has been there for a long time.

Yes, the army's issues are just that, the Army's issues. THe other services (marines included who are extremely small and highly utilized in this war) are not having the same issues. This may be because the army is deploying so many, but look at the numbers the Air Force has deployed recently to relieve the Army. They have taken on MANY MANY jobs that were formerly Army jobs in Iraq and have tripled their deployments to relieve them, doing jobs the AF and Navy had never trained for.

The Army decides to promote Lt's to Capt's at the 3 year point instead of 4 years like the other three branches are forced to because they can't keep officers in their service... .And that was before the wars..when the AF and Navy were doing all the deployments in the 90s. So instead of fixing the terrible budget problems they have, and fixing their terrible quality of life problems, they are causing officers in other services to feel underappreciated and just promoting faster. they keep using quick short-term solutions rather than looking long-term.

Great piece, Phil.
It is indeed absurd that the only ones who must lose sleep at night worried about receiving one of those "Important Documents" from the Dept. of the Army in the mail summoning them back to Iraq from their civilian lives/jobs/marriages are those who have already served! The other 99% of the American public can sleep soundly since the Administration knows it is politically untenable to ask their sacrifice. I pray the next administration has a plan in place for ending stop-loss/IRR call-ups, both of which may be defensible according to the "letter of the law" (both are justified somewhere in the fine print) but are profound stains on the "spirit of the law." I am proud to have served in the infantry and don't regret a minute of it- but policies like these make one lose lots of faith in those sending us into harm's way.

gee, Matt --
you're not in the Air Force, are you ?

complaining about combat troops getting promoted faster than you;

complaining that tours for Airmen tripled from 60 days to 6 months;

complaining that the USAF recruiter promised that the only Airmen who have to go to war are the fighter pilots,
but there you are in Iraq,
doing a support job that a soldier used to do,
because he is now doing foot patrols in Sadr City ?

He did one tour and has been milking it like a pro ever since, including the book. I'm supposed to be bothered by this guy getting called up? Sorry, not gonna happen. Then again, I'm writing this from Afghanistan.

"Every time an IRR member gets called up, I see it as a failure of the Army personnel system to accurately predict its needs and recruit and retain sufficient numbers of troops to meet those needs."

Really? I see it as an example of an already-large army fighting a war that was never needed.

The US already spends more on its military than the REST OF THE WORLD PUT TOGETHER.

And you think the problem is that the Army isn't big enough? No, the problem is that the US is illegally invading and occupying foreign countries.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq is not about terror, not about Christianity vs Islam, and it certainly has nothing to do with a moral imperative. The war on terror in Iraq is about crime, corruption, and downright stupidity. There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq prior to 1-20-2003, there was no radical Islam in Iraq, but there was an opportunity to invade a country for corrupt reasons--no bid and inflated contracts for cronies of the miserable failure of the "Things" mis-administration.

John M stay safe in Afghanistan, but when it comes time for your second or third deployment and you have decided to do something else with your life, remember, don't cry about it. The man did his time, why should more be asked? Especially when Americans are more concerned with who is going to win American Idol than whereinthehell Iraq or Afghanistan are.

Wanna fight? Go get married. Wanna fight? Go join the army.

It's not just emergency personnel measures, it's also emergency appropriations. Bush has turned Clinton's historic budget surplus as far as the eye can see into a nine trillion dollar debt for the children.

The no-bid Bushies are porkin' it in while the greatest American patriots are burglarized, ransacked, tortured, obstructed and threatened.

We have punished many troops for taking pictures of abuse and have never punished the lawyers and those who ordered and were responsible for the abuse.

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Trillion-Dollar-War-Conflict/dp/0393067017/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204232422&sr=8-1

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050608M.shtml

Matt, you refer to the AF and Navy doing "all the deployments in the 90s." Huh? Somalia? The Balkans? Pretty sure the Army was involved in those deployments and last time I checked it was soldiers and not sailors and airmen who bore the brunt of the casualties in that decade's bloodiest battle- Mogadishu.
As for this war, 81.9% of medevacs have been of soldiers, 11.5% have been Marines, 3.7% Navy and 3.0% AF. I do not mean to start an inter-service squabble, but it is tough for someone who served with and witnessed firsthand a number of these casualties to stomach too much belly-aching by the AF and the Navy.

I think this reflects more of the LTG Sanchez "I'm a Cold Warrior and proud of it" problem than a problem with the Army's size per se. (That's my generation of officers, too... but no longer me.)

It also reflects some of the interservice rivalry nonsense that has resulted in the Army being the fourth- or fifth-largest (in terms of both airframes and personnel assigned) "air force" in the world. Hypothetically, if the mission got shifted to the USAF, the personnel would be available for other Army missions.* Of course, the various budget battles, the "nuclear prestige" problem, etc. would undoubtedly conspire to sabotage that in practice.

Ultimately, SPC Buzzell's situation is a predictable — not necessarily inevitable — result of using a Cold-War-forged sledgehammer where one needs an unconventional-conflict-honed chisel... or, in any event, more chisels than one has in the shop. And remember, it only seems like the wood is biting back, although it's no mere perception that Southwest Asia is biting back.

* Not necessarily direct assignment as rifle-toters. Remember: Amateurs think about weapons systems; dilletantes think about tactics and force employment; politicians think about strategy; and professional soldiers think about logistics. Perhaps things have improved since Gulf War I, but the Army's logistical performance was more than a bit wanting (aside from moving the weapons and personnel themselves, which was mostly done by the USAF and fast-sealift anyway).

"Ultimately, SPC Buzzell's situation is a predictable -- not necessarily inevitable -- result of using a Cold-War-forged sledgehammer where one needs an unconventional-conflict-honed chisel..."

Oh, so everything would be OK if Iraq had been illegally attacked and occupied by finely-honed chisels?

You can't see the wood for the trees. The war was completely unjustified and unnecessary, and the mission infeasible, that's the problem.

It's not the Cold War mentality that's hurting America, it's the WAR mentality, period.

Johnny, we in the Navy salute you! Except - my part of the Navy is those proud Corpsmen who try to keep the Marines alive. My hat's off to ANYONE who does that kind of work (meaning boots on the ground). God bless 'em.

Carter touches on an issue that we've lost sight of - that while we have an enormous military establishment, we have a pretty small group of deployables (sometimes viewed as the Deplorables). Before I retired, the CNO, Vern Clark, tried to get a handle on the tooth/tail ratio (primarily, uniform:(GS + contractor). As I recall, it was around 3:10. And that was without the buzzards at KBR who have swarmed to OIF/OEF. And much of the uniformed part is nondeployable. Less than 1 in 3 were at risk of being deployed. Contrast that with the 8404 combat corpsmen, where the risk of being deployed with the Marines is approaching 200 or 300 %. What you end up with is a alarmingly high opportunity for a very select group to "defend their country," or as Phil put it, be honored with that prestigious George W. Bush Fellowship. Grunt is a monosyllabic word, huh?

I respect all you in-country troop and all who are supporting, have done your time, and may have to go back.

The question for the current and soon-to-go-back is, as always with the "war on terror", is what is the mission? I am not trying to be funny or critical. I know that the overall mission keeps changing. I know that at your particular base, outfit, company, or branch, you have your own mission. I just like to keep track of what we are fighting for, besides of course, my buddies, my country, my family.

"Every time an IRR member gets called up, I see it as a failure of the Army personnel system to accurately predict its needs and recruit and retain sufficient numbers of troops to meet those needs. Similarly, I see the overuse of the reserves today as a sign that the active force probably isn't big enough -- and I worry a great deal that we have nothing left in reserve as a result."

Gee, Phil, here's a unique idea. Why don't we as a nation develop the ability to properly separate needs from wants? The underlying principle of war in the Westphalian sense, i.e., significant involvement of the state's defense establishment, is that the commitment must be from necessity. We've turned this entirely around, substituting wants for needs. George Bush wanted this war. The U.S. didn't need it.

Our Department of Defense periodically goes through a massive exercise known as the "Quadrennial Defense Review," or "QDR." That's where all of the manpower and materiel requirements are supposed to be identified. Leaving aside the reality of the QDR, which is a fantasy exercise, one must ask why DoD even bothers to do it, if a president's uncontrollable urges can upset all of that planning.

You're suggesting an increase in military manpower based solely on our current president's uncontrollable urges. We've had consecutive presidencies plagued by the personal issues of the presidents. We all know what Bill Clinton's urges were/are, but we don't talk much about the clear flaws in Bush's character.

Bill Clinton and George Bush are poster children for an increasingly infantile America, a nation that can't control itself. A nation that can't live within its means. We now hear on a daily basis about the number of house foreclosures and see our financial markets in turmoil as a result of all of those loans tendered to people who just wouldn't live within their means. I've heard that the average credit card debt per capita is something like $10K. Why is that relevant to war and peace? Well, IOTM that a nation that can't control its own personal spending and finances isn't going to serve as any kind of check on a president and Congress with the same problems.

If Clinton were a true adult, he would not have succumbed to his urges in the Oval Office. Big deal about a little sex on the side, you say? Well, ask President Gore about that. If Bush were a true adult, he would have ensured that the resources were available before he launched a war of choice in Iraq. He would even have raised taxes if need be.

Before we talk about increasing the size of the military, I think we should talk about the need for heightened surveillance on the part of the people of how and where the funds for national defense are spent. We have a defense budget exceeding $600B per annum. That's more than enough in a sane universe. You want to raise ground troop levels? Fine. Then let's talk a little bit about zero-sum defense budgeting. Let's talk about where the Air Force, Navy and DoD agencies are going to give up some sacred cows to pay for it. Enough of the open-ended commitments. If a president must give into his urges, let's tell him to go find the money in the existing budgets. No more of this open-ended stuff, with massive new debt being piled upon even more massive existing debt.

This is George Bush's war and we must never forget that. We must also avoid making additional resource commitments for the out-years this late in the game. I'm sorry for this reservist and the others affected, but to me, the key now is to draw down forces in Iraq, not increase them. Increasing the size of the Army at this point would only encourage perpetuation of this world-class blunder.

Any rumblings of the Navy or AF IRR being volun-told to go over there?