. . . The latest "revolution" in warfare, the brainchild of the late Air Force Col., John Boyd, goes by the name "transformation" and combines high tech and maneuver. Its model was the German Blitzkrieg. But Rumsfeld's New Model Army is discovering that the very instruments which make it so invincible on a conventional battlefield are of little use in the non-conventional war the Bush Administration finds itself embroiled in. As long as the enemy was the Iraqi army, the "revolution" works just fine. It has done less well against roadside explosives, ambushes, and suicide bombs.
Part of the problem is the "transformation" army itself.
The US military looks increasingly like a temp agency on steroids: a massive organization of part-time workers armed with the latest in firepower.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, some 292,000 National Guard and reserve troops have been called to active duty, and more than 190,000 are still serving. The Pentagon just announced a further call-up of 30,000. Reserve and National Guard units now make up 46 percent of the military.
Reserves have always been an important component of the US military, but
they are only supposed to be called up in times of national emergency.
> From World War I to Gulf War I--75 years--they were called up nine
times. In the last 12 years they have been mobilized 10 times.
Normally such troops work behind the front lines and serve for shorter periods than regular troops. However, under "transformation," their deployment has been stretched to 12, and sometimes 15 months. And the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan is anyplace a soldier happens to be.
The thinking behind all this is simple math: reserve and Guard troops are much cheaper than regular troops. As Christopher Caldwell at the Weekly Standard notes, "it is hard not see a similarity between the army's shift to part-time soldiering and businesses preferences for part-time vs full-time labor."
Transformation" has essentially shifted much of the financial burden for maintaining permanent troops to the families of the reserves. Most joined up for the educational grants and small stipends that comes with the job. But reserves are suddenly finding themselves locked into open-ended deployments in very dangerous places. "Weekend warrior, my ass," one sign spotted in Baghdad read.
The toll on these temps has been considerable. According to the British newspaper, The Guardian, 75 percent of the 478 troops shipped home from Iraq for mental health reasons were reservists.
Wounded reservists returning from Iraq complain they have been "warehoused" at Fort Stewart, Ga. in barracks without showers or bathrooms and sometimes wait weeks to see a doctor.
Inadequate medical care--another way the New Model Army is trying to save on personal costs--has touched a raw nerve among veterans as well, many of whom are partially or fully disabled from Gulf War Syndrome. Veterans groups charge that almost 150,000 vets from Gulf War I have been waiting more than six months to see a doctor, and the wait for a specialist is up to two years.
Those numbers are likely to climb because solders in Iraq today are being exposed to many of the battlefield toxins that felled some 118,000 veterans in the first Gulf War.
The Syndrome has been linked to some 345 tons of Depleted Uranium Ammunition (DUA) used in the 1991 conflict. According to the London Express, the Americans and the British used between 1,100 and 2,200 tons of DUA, much of it in urban areas during the recent war. Radiation 1,000 to 1,900 times normal has been detected in four locations in Baghdad.
The situation is "appalling," according to Professor Brian Spratt, chair of the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific body. "We really need someone like the UN environmental program or the World Health Organization to get into Iraq and start testing civilians and soldiers for uranium exposure."
Such testing is unlikely because the Department of Defense denies that DUA poses any health risks.
Reservists also charge that they are given second-rate equipment in the field, including inadequate body armor.
While spending on high-tech whiz-bangs is at an all time high, the Administration has steadily shaved the cost of personnal.
A recent Pentagon attempt to cut active duty pay was defeated by congressional outrage, but the Administration is still attempting to disqualify some 1.5 million veterans from eligibility for disability benefits.
The Pentagon has also resisted the Retired Pay Restoration Act that would correct an anomaly that reduces military retirement pay by the amount veterans draw in disability. The measure would level the playing field between Civil Service retirees and 670,000 vets caught in this bureaucratic oddity, but the Pentagon has resisted it as a "budget buster."
Besides increasingly relying on temp soldiers, the "transformation" army is also trying to apply private industry practices to public service. Rumsfeld is seeking the right to hire, fire and promote some 700,000 civilian Pentagon employees on "merit" alone, free of government employment regulations.
"The risk that this system will be politicized and characterized by cronyism in hiring, firing, pay promotion and discipline are immense," says Bobby Harnatge, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
While the manpower crisis on the ground is bad--there are just not enough troops available to match the Administration's imperial sprawl--it is likely to get a whole lot worse. A recent poll by the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, found that only 49 percent of the reserves intend to re-enlist. . . .
Conn Hallinan is a provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He can be reached at: connm at cats.ucsc.edu *****
***** villagevoice.com exclusive Mondo Washington by James Ridgeway Rumsfeld Watch Why the Secretary of Defense Opposes the Draft November 20th, 2003 3:00 PM
WASHINGTON, D.C.—With the military's ranks stretched thin and faced with a prolonged guerrilla war, there is sudden speculation about a reinstatement of the draft. A Gallup poll released earlier this week shows the American public is adamantly against the idea. Eighty percent of those polled by Gallup and CNN are against; 17 percent for it.
If Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has anything to do with it, the draft will never see the light of day. When lawmakers started talking about dusting off the draft just before the Iraq war started, Rummy startled everyone with his off-the-cuff claim that the 16 million Americans who had been drafted from 1917 for the first world war up through the Vietnam war in 1973 had "no value, no advantage really, to the U.S. armed services over any sustained period of time." He later apologized to veterans groups, but the Pentagon still insists that draftees serve shorter stints in the service than volunteers, making training conscripts inefficient. And modern-day brass moans about how draftees don't meld into a cohesive fighting force, whatever that means. Beating Hitler doesn't count? . . .
It's all beside the point. Like it or not, we're headed for some sort of twisted version of a draft. Members of the Guard and Reserves may well be "volunteers," but it's doubtful they volunteered to leave their civilian lives to become sitting ducks in a desert for a year or more. The Pentagon already has announced plans to call up tens of thousands of National Guard and Army reservists for possible duty in Iraq. Members of the Guard and reserves are often older than their active-duty soldiers. They have families. And they often have decent jobs.
Recruitment levels in the Guard and reserves have shown declines, and Pentagon officials fear they may decline markedly over time as the country adjusts to the perception of the Iraqi war as a protracted guerrilla struggle.
The Pentagon now relies on the Guard and reservists to such an extent that the U.S.'s ability to fight more than one war at a time depends on mustering these units out of civilian life and into uniform. Moreover, many young people join the military to get work in tight economic conditions and to earn the money to pay for college. Earlier this month The Washington Post reported that some 1300 members of the Guard and reserves filed complaints with the Labor Department in 2003, claiming discrimination when they returned to their jobs from military duty. It is against the law to discriminate against returning soldiers. . . .
<http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0348/mondo5.php> *****
***** Boots on the Ground, Family Back Home
> From L HILLAH, Iraq
by Mark L. Kimmey, New York Times
September 21st, 2003
The Army's decision to keep its Reserve forces in Iraq on duty for a full year from their arrival may have profound consequences for both the Army and the war in Iraq. While the Army will gain increased flexibility with its "boots on the ground," the long deployments may demoralize reservists. When mobilization and demobilization are included, 12 months on duty in Iraq will mean a 14- to 16-month separation from family and career for reservists.
"Fair doesn't mean equal," a battalion commander once told me. But the message to reservists is unmistakable: the Army no longer takes into account sacrifices made to maintain two careers and lives. Many reservists will watch the regular soldiers with whom they came to Iraq go home before they do. The Army may not care about the disparity between the way the forces are treated, but those of us in the Reserve do.
Everyone knows that the regular and Reserve units of the Army are not equal. Regulars are better trained, better equipped and expected to execute their missions more professionally. That's the way it should be: it's their job — their only job.
Reservists have jobs in the civilian world. For a reservist, every day in uniform is a day away from what might be (or might have been) a promising career. Despite the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination against an employee because of military service, we understand that when a dispute with an employer arises, the reservist always loses — even if the employer is forced to take us back. What's more, many of us don't serve long enough to qualify for a military pension — and even if we do, it's not enough to compensate for opportunities missed while we were deployed.
Hardships on Reserve families have increased with longer and more frequent deployments. Reservists don't always have ready access to a military base and its support programs. Left to fend for themselves, Reserve families are becoming more vocal about their unhappiness with the situation. Politicians may not be listening to their complaints, but you can bet we husbands and wives overseas are hearing their pain.
The Army is fond of bragging about the advantages of the all-volunteer force. But reservists are volunteers, too. We sign up for the Reserve when we leave the Army because we want to continue to serve with people we respect. We sign up because we want to serve our country. We sign up for extra income or educational benefits. Some of us sign up to be part of history, for the possibility of adventure. But nobody signs up for occupation duty, especially occupation of a country that never officially surrendered. . . .
The advantage of experienced reservists to a unit is immeasurable. But here in Iraq, I am hearing more soldiers talk about calling it quits when they return to the States. Even though some soldiers are only four or five years from qualifying for retirement pay and benefits, they're getting out. The constant deployments are difficult for families and careers, they say, and waiting around for retirement benefits is no longer worth it.
The evidence I see in other units around me is the same: the United States Army is about to see a mass exodus from its Reserve. . . .
The question the Army faces is simple: will more frequent, extended deployments dry up the Reserve pool? We need an answer soon. If the Reserve continue to be misused, soldiers will vote with their feet when they get home. By then it will be too late for the Army to figure out what went wrong. . . .
Mark L. Kimmey, a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserve, is a systems engineer in civilian life.
<http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=1006> *****