Posted: 1/25/2005 5:08:42 AM EDT
|
Washington Times January 25, 2005 Pg. 17 Ground Forces Too Small Support growing for increasing forces By Robert H. Scales A close look at photos of American service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan reinforces the painful truism that soldiers and Marines are doing virtually all of the fighting and dying. This isn't a new phenomenon. From Korea to Iraq, four out of five of those who died at the hands of the enemy were infantrymen. Not just soldiers and Marines, but infantrymen, a force that today comprises less than 6 percent of those in uniform. With the exception of Kosovo, the success of American arms in every conflict after World War II was threatened by a shortage of ground soldiers. In Korea and Vietnam, the shortage was addressed by rushing young men into deadly combat before they were adequately prepared. The deadly arithmetic in Iraq continues true to form, with close-combat soldiers comprising at least three-quarters of our dead. Yet if all Army and Marine infantrymen were collected together in one place they would not fill FedEx Stadium. The pressures of war and the parsimony of past administrations have broken the Army twice in the past 40 years. In Vietnam, the pressures of fighting a war with too limited a force caused Army noncommissioned officers, the human glue that holds our Army together, to leave en masse. The result was chaos. In the early '70 conditions became so bad that the American Army virtually ceased to exist as a fighting force. Again in the late seventies the Carter administration tried to accomplish too many missions with too few soldiers. Again the Army voted with its feet, creating a "hollow Army" that embarrassed the nation with its incompetence during Desert One, the failed hostage rescue effort in Iran. The lessons are clear: a good army takes generations to build and only a few short years to break. Last month I addressed 1,200 students at the Army's Command and General Staff College, a place where middle-grade officers learn about the art of war. I asked by a show of hands how many of them were either coming from Iraq or returning there after graduation. Virtually every hand went up immediately. The scene dramatically reinforced to me the concern that again we are seeing an Army and Marine Corps stretched to the limit. Again, this precious fragment of our military is being asked to accomplish too many missions with too few troops. The shortage of soldiers and Marines is being addressed by converting soldiers in non combat specialties to fight as infantry and by rotating combat units back into Iraq with very little time between deployments. All but one of the Army's regular divisions are either in combat or preparing to go. Yet, incredibly, today our military has more first-rate fighter aircraft in active service than infantry squads. This nation needs to increase its ground forces by at least 150,000 over the next four years. This number would allow the combat elements of the Army to increase from the present 33 brigades to more than 50 with large increases in soldiers who perform skills critical to fighting radical Islam such as engineers, military police and, most importantly, infantry. The Marines would be increased in proportion adding about two Marine Expeditionary Brigades. A particularly heavy burden falls on our special forces. Only these exceptional men can accomplish many of the unique and extremely hazardous missions demanded in this new era of counterinsurgency warfare. As a minimum we should create at least one additional special forces group supported with a substantial addition of psychological operations and civil affairs units. A growing consensus for increasing the numbers of ground troops is emerging. Many are loyal supporters of this president, including people such as Bill Kristol, Fred Kagan and members of Congress. These civilians are backed by a legion of retired officers, most of whom have experienced a broken Army first hand, and have joined into chant the same mantra :If you believe that what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan are one-off exercises soon to end, then let's stick with the military we have. But if you believe as I and many others do that these wars are harbingers of the future, that we will be fighting against radical Islamists for generations, then we must accept the fact that we need many more of those who we trust to do virtually all of the fighting and dying. Retired Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales is the former commandant of the Army War College. |
|
The Marines are adding 3,000 men to their ranks, specifically to the Infantry. The increased tempo is a double edged sword. On the one hand, the endless rotation in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan can create a fatigue that some say is weakening our military. On the other hand, we are creating the largest force of well equiped, battle hardened troops that the world has seen in over 60 years. AND, there is no shortage of recruits for the active services, the reserves are only falling short of their goals in the NG. We have NEVER been more able, never stronger than our military is right now. We've gotten BETTER at doing our job, SINCE 2003. We are learning lessons, and implimenting changes to doctrine and equipement, at a remarkably fast pace. A slight increase in Grunts, and we should be able to continue like this for the next 20 years. That's how long we'll be fighting this war... |
Sorry for being off topic but the above quote reinforces the idea behind awarding the CIB to infanrtymen and 18 series men only. |
www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=660003
|
I agree, but you have combat engineers who are serving as infantry, not just one or two ops, but the whole tour being denied them. Compare that to "Combat Infantrymen" from Panama and Desert Storm who never heard a shot fired in anger and yet have their CIBs it starts to become ridiculous. |
|
One of the above posts prompted me to realize that the war on terror may go down in this country's history as the "20 year war", or "30 year war". Perhaps a strange way to term it, but it will be a protracted "war", as well as expensive, costly in terms of life/limb and devisive for this country, at least until the libs/sheeple "get it" if they ever do.God forbid, but I sometimes wonder if the only thing the libs and sheep will understand is another devastating terrorist attack in order for them to get their attitudes readjusted properly. However, it is an absolute necessity if this country is to survive. 
|
|
There is a CMB, Combat Medical Badge. I'm kinda against badges like that, 'casue going in harm's way is pretty much a soldier's job. I'm also agasint the EIB/EFMB (And I actually have one of those), since bein' MOSQ'd should be the standard anyway. Now, onto numbers. Of course the total force is to small. It's not rocket surgery. Also, the Army has screwed the pooch in it's re-organization. I was in 4th ID when is was the first "Force (Farce) XXI" organized unit. That's when the brass had the stupendous idea of removing all support elements from combat battalions, and, re-grouping them in "Forward Support Companies" (read: More pouge command opps.), and then chopping them back out to the individual battalions. Eventually, they re-did this after they figgured out it was a bad idea. They also removed a full company from every combat battalion. The only good thing was the formation of the brigade recon troops (BRTs). 8 man squads, three companys to a battalion...hm. wonder why we need so many flags over there to do the job. |
its my understanding that at one time there was a combat artillery badge, along with several others (combat arms related) but that the army dropped them towards the end of the 40s, now wether that is true or not i dont know, but if one combat arm gets something i think the others should too. and there are a lot of cases where whole artillery units are being "retrained" as infantry and spending their entire tour working as such, to say they deserve nothing for it is `bullshit. |
Then give em combat engineers badges and make up something then. Heck I hear that the CIB was determined by the individual unit. Some requires a certain amount of time and so many hot patrols and things like that. In GW1, all you had to do was spend some R&R in Rammadi for a day and you got one. |
