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| U.S. Army Isn't Broken After All, Military Experts Say | |
| 2008-03-19 | |
| Charts at site One year ago, as President Bush decided to send more troops to Iraq, the conventional wisdom in Washington among opponents of the war was that the U.S. Army was on the verge of breaking. In December 2006 former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell warned, "The active Army is about broken." Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, in a much-cited memo to West Point colleagues, wrote: "My bottom line is that the Army is unraveling, and if we don’t expend significant national energy to reverse that trend, sometime in the next two years we will break the Army just like we did during Vietnam." Army Maj. Gen. Bob Scales, the former head of the Army War College, agreed. He wrote in an editorial in the Washington Times on March 30: "If you haven't heard the news, I'm afraid your Army is broken, a victim of too many missions for too few soldiers for too long. ... Today, anecdotal evidence of collapse is all around." But now, one year later, Scales has done an about-face. He says that he was wrong. Despite all the predictions of imminent collapse, the U.S. Army and the combat brigades have proven to be surprisingly resilient. According to Army statistics obtained exclusively by FOX News, 70 percent of soldiers eligible to re-enlist in 2006 did so — a re-enlistment rate higher than before Sept. 11, 2001. For the past 10 years, the enlisted retention rates of the Army have exceeded 100 percent. As of last Nov. 13, Army re-enlistment was 137 percent of its stated goal. Scales, a FOX News contributor, said he based his assessment last year "on the statistics that showed a high attrition among enlisted soldiers, officers who were leaving the service early, and a decline in the quality of enlistments," a reference to the rising number of waivers given for "moral defects" such as drug use and lowered educational requirements. "In fact, what we've seen over the last year is that the Army retention rates are pretty high, that re-enlistments, for instance, particularly re-enlistments in Iraq and Afghanistan, remain very high," Scales said. He noted that re-enlistments were high even among troops who have served multiple tours. A year ago, some military experts were comparing the Army of 2007 with the army of a generation ago, at the end of the Vietnam War, when it was considered "broken" due to morale problems and an exodus of the "best and the brightest" soldiers from service. Scales said he didn’t take into account that, unlike Vietnam, this Army is sending soldiers to fight as a unit — not as individuals. He also neglected the "Band of Brothers" phenomenon — the feeling of responsibility to fellow soldiers that prompts members of service to re-enlist. "The soldiers go back to the theater of war as units," Scales said. "They are bonded together, they know each other, they don't have to fight as an army of strangers. "I was wrong a year ago when I forecast the imminent collapse of the Army. I relied a little bit too much on the data and not enough on the intangibles." Not all the military analysts who made similar predictions last year agree. Lawrence Korb, who worked on personnel issues during the Reagan administration, testified to Congress last July: "As Gen. Barry McCaffrey pointed out when we testified together before the Senate Armed Services Committee in April, ‘the ground combat capability of the U.S. armed forces is shot.'" Korb, a resident scholar at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, told FOX News the Army is worse off than it was a year ago. He suggested that the Army is not being honest with its re-enlistment and retention numbers, an accusation echoed by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo.
He also said that while the numbers of captains leaving the military may not be alarming, the number of captains educated at West Point is. According to Korb, half of the eligible captains from West Point’s class of 2002 have left the service. And then there are the re-enlistment bonuses, which rose from $50 million in 1998 to $562 million per year in 2007. The amount of re-enlistment bonuses paid is now five times what it was at the start of the Iraq war, according to U.S. Army figures. But Scales says the desertion by mid-grade officers — captains and majors — just hasn’t occurred as predicted. "The Army's collapse after Vietnam was presaged by a desertion of mid-grade officers (captains) and non-commissioned officers," Scales wrote a year ago. "Many were killed or wounded. Most left because they and their families were tired and didn't want to serve in units unprepared for war.... "If we lose our sergeants and captains, the Army breaks again. It's just that simple. That's why these soldiers are still the canaries in the readiness coal-mine. And, again, if you look closely, you will see that these canaries are fleeing their cages in frightening numbers." But an internal Army document prepared at the request of Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey and obtained by FOX News suggests that the comparison to the "hollow Army" of 1972 near the end of the Vietnam War is inappropriate. The main reason: Today's Army is an all-volunteer force, and the Army in Vietnam largely was composed of draftees. Captain losses have remained steady at about 11 percent since 1990, and the loss of majors has been unchanged at about 6 percent. "To date, the data do not show heightened levels of junior officer departures that can be tied directly to multiple rotations in Afghanistan or Iraq," the internal Army memo concludes. The key difference between now and Vietnam, Scales explains, is: "this idea that soldiers fight as part of a team. It’s the ‘Band of Brothers’ approach to combat that makes armies effective in wartime, and the Army has been wise enough over the past five years to work very hard to keep soldiers together in units and not to treat soldiers as sort of replacement parts, but to keep them together as cohesive units. ... I believe, is the glue that has really served to hold this army together.” | |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #17 For Radical Islam to place their Jihadist-Islamist agenda in the hands of so-called "Infidels" will be interpreted by both many Islamists and non-Islamists,Muslims and non-Muslims, etc. that ISLAMISM = ISLAM? HAD LOST OR IS DE FACTO DEFEATED. BY HIS REPORTED NEW THREAT AGZ THE POPE = VATICAN TODAY, IMO OSAMA etc. REALIZES THIS POINT. Iff Radical Islam has any so-called "Amer Hiroshima" plans, SAID PLANS ARE PROB BEING DUSTED OFF RIGHT NOW. A VERY DANGEROUS TIME LIES JUST AHEAD OF US, SO KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED AND YOUR GUNS-AMMO OILED AND WELL-STOCKED. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-03-19 22:32 |
| #16 This is asking the same question as was asked when Dubya first officially announced the WOT after 9-11 > CAN THE USA WID ITS VOLUNTEER ARMY FIGHT AND WIN A GLOBAL WAR AGZ [DECENTRALIZED/ COVERT]TERROR, AND DO SO DESPITE ANY RISK OF "GREAT POWERS" REGIONAL-GLOBAL MIL CONFRONTATION AND INTERVENTION AGZ THE US = US AGENDA, INCLUDING ALLIED!? Despite meritorious advantages, a VOLAR still contains inherent weaknesses over a NATIONAL DRAFT army, espec when and iff SMALL LOCAL WARS/CONFLICTS BECOME BIG GLOBAL ONES, e.g. RUSSO-CHINA ANTI-US "WAR NOT ONLY POSSIBLE BUT DESIRED" circa 2018, now as early as 2012. *POTUS HILLARY, OBAMA, andor MCCAIN > their post-Dubya strategies is broadly based on OSAMA = RADICAL ISLAM STAYING IN THE ME AND NOT BEING ABLE TO EFFECTIVELY EXTEND AND SPREAD THEIR ORGZ + REGIONAL-GLOBAL VIOLENT JIHAD OVER TO THE AMERICAS OR EUROPE, i.e. NOT OUTSIDE THE ME = MUSLIM-DOMIN WORLD REGIONS. The Dems = Hillary-Barack are clearly anticipating that Dubya will not cease US entrenchment, etc. efforts in 2008, so they risk nothing by redux US milfor levels or bringing troops home starting in 2009. *MARA LIASSON > argued that neither a DEM POTUS BARACK NOR POTUS HILLARY IS GOING TO WILFULLY, UNILATER DOWNSIZE US TROOPS IN 2009 TO SUCH PRECIPITIOUS LEVELS AS TO ENDANGER THE IGA + DEMOCRATIC IRAQ where Islamists will fill the voids + US/US-Allies ends up having to militarily go back in [Mort/Fred]. LEST WE FERGIT, ISRAEL > BELIEVES IRAN [by extens Radical Islamist Terror] WILL HAVE WORKING NUKE BOMB(S) IN ONE YEAR [EOY 2008 or after]. Presuming that a POTUS OBama or POTUS Hillary does indeed go thru wid post-elex US milfor redux, wid parallel downsized but still-effective US entrenchment efforts, the question for Osama = Radical Islam after Jan 2009 then becomes whether they can still mil defeat large or major US or US-Iraqi forces in tactical battle??? IFF OSAMA AND RADICLA ISLAM CANNOT WIN ANY BATTLEFIELD VICTORY DESPITE ANY REDUCED US PRESENCE, THEN IMO TO CONTINUE WID GLOBAL JIHAD INFERS PUTTING THE JIHADIST-ISLAMIST AGENDA INTO THE DE FACTO CONTROL OF ANTI-US BUT ALSO ANTI-/NON-ISLAMIST WORLD POWERS. To continue wid jihad, Radical Islam will have to give up control of thier men and materiel, etc. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-03-19 22:18 |
| #15 I understand winning helps morale, too. Well, yes. But that depends on having the training, leadership, and equipment to fight. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-03-19 21:48 |
| #14 And the changeover under Reagan was a Godsend. We actually got serious about training like we wanted to fight. Airland Battle was a breath of fresh air from the "hold in place and die" of Carter's Army. Our job was not to serve as a tripwire for nukes anymore, but to see how many of them we could make die - and stay alive. Fight to win! Seek the enemy out, find his weak spots, exploit those gaps, kill them in large numbers, then dodge back and do it again. Stealth, Mobility, Lethality. Cavalry Scout! Thats when I first felt like a soldier: when we went out and got AGGRESSIVE - and got the tools to do it with - dirt bikes, Bradley CFVs, modern laser homing ATGM, laser designators, hunter-killer teams on the ground (Scouts + CFV) and in the air (OH58D + Cobra/Apache). We were finally focused on the right thing - in the words of Patton, "making the other poor dumb bastard die for HIS country". I HATE Jimmy Carter for what he did to the military and the nation, the country he continues to loathe. When they bury him I hope someone sneaks the casket at the last minute and turns that SOB face down. If there was any justice, they'd just plant him head down like a lawn dart. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-03-19 21:43 |
| #13 Glemore, there's more of that than you might think. I was a crappy peacetime soldier. A troublemaker. A "boat rocker". Some of us are made for trouble and if we cannot find it, we make it War changes everything. A wartime/professional army where you cut through the BS is where we thrive or else completely fall apart. For those that survive it, the hard part is when you get too old to "march toward the sound of the guns". Still have the "wanna do", short on the "can do". |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-03-19 21:32 |
| #12 1) Retention bonuses are way up. If you want something worthwhile, you have to pay for it; I don't see this as a problem. 2) Historically, when the economy sinks, military jobs become more attractive - no, not the Kerry line about soldiers only join because they can't do anything else, but it is true that when the competition for the soldier's services goes up he is more likely to leave and when it goes down he is more likely to stay. 3) I think our servicemen understand the importance of what they are doing, and that a great many Americans appreciate it, which makes the hardships more endurable. 4) I know a lot of guys enlist because they actually 'like' to fight - not murder, or even kill, but psychologically they enjoy the competition, teamwork, etc. And they like the neat 'toys' and getting to blow stuff up. Glad they're on our side. From my perspective, as a non-military guy. Sure hope the next administration doesn't re-Clintonize things and screw us all. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2008-03-19 19:35 |
| #11 Carter's Army had a thin green perma-press uniform that would wear through instantly if the knee touched pavement of any sort. Oh gawd, I remember that travesty. ugh. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-03-19 19:23 |
| #10 Well said, TW. |
| Posted by: Jomosing Bluetooth8431 2008-03-19 18:14 |
| #9 At Mr.Wife's company, there is a steady loss of employees at year 1, year 5, year 10, and year 20 (or thereabouts). This is planned for, because it's been pretty constant over the decades. Likewise, based on the internal Army memo quoted at the bottom of the article, the retirement of captains and majors is unchanged from historical rates, not even accelerated by the move from peace to war footing. Those ambitious ones who are not, in their opinion, being promoted quickly enough, will leave. Those who do not, in themselves or in their families, have the endurance for an at least decade-long war with long stints on the battlefield, will leave. Those who have been injured too badly to remain, will leave. Those who, to their surprise and dismay, turn out not to be cut out for a soldier's life (or sailor's, or airman's, or marine's, yes, yes. I'm a civilian -- I can't keep track of interservice rivalries!), will leave. Let's thank them all for their service, wish them well, and be grateful A) that recruitment numbers, though increasing, continue to be met, and B) that the leavening of civil society with an increasing number of military veterans who have willingly put all on the line to protect us can only benefit the country in ways too numerous to count... but the first of which will be demonstrated in November. ;-) Thank you for your service, however brief or long it was. That which you have learnt has not been lost, only moved a bit. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-03-19 17:58 |
| #8 Yeah, I was in that Army. Got to see the start of the changeover after Reagan was elected. Carter's Army had a thin green perma-press uniform that would wear through instantly if the knee touched pavement of any sort. The Reagan Army got a uniform (BDU) that actually looked like it was designed to fight in. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2008-03-19 17:57 |
| #7 tipover is correct. Drug, race riots [in Germany], lesser confrontations elsewhere, alcohol abuse, high levels of AWOL and Article 15s [and courts martial], most married enlisted qualified for food stamps trying to make in the largest government operated ghetto housing conglomerate known as base housing, very limited funding for real training, spare parts, and general maintenance of facilities. It's been far worse than anything the self appointed critics will understand or admit. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-03-19 17:46 |
| #6 I understand winning helps morale, too. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-03-19 17:40 |
| #5 Note: The above was why I did not re-enlist. VOLAR and Reagan made a world of difference in the force. |
| Posted by: tipover 2008-03-19 17:19 |
| #4 That RIF didn't help the attitudes of those retained either. I was Active Army 1976-1979. The force definitely NOT the same as the present volunteer forces (drugs anyone?). In addition I had a FDC section sergeant that was reduced in rank but retained. Prior enlisted that went through OCS. He was a decent leader but just marking time until his twenty was done. Morale, equipment, funding were in the pits before Reagan. |
| Posted by: tipover 2008-03-19 17:16 |
| #3 I think they just missed the obvious: Volunteers are more dependable than draftees. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-03-19 17:07 |
| #2 The high attrition rate amoung captains and majors after Viet Nam was a self inflicted wound by the Army. They were over strength in captains and majors at the time and decided to take all of the excesses out of two year groups instead of army wide. The net result was that some very good officers were RIFed in 1975 because they were in the 1968 year group and a lot of marginaly officers in the 1970 year group were retained. This disenchanted a lot of captains and majors about careers in the military and a number of them resigned. The net result was the army lost a lot of experienced combat veterans due to the RIF and disgust and there was a shortage of captains and majors for a number of years. |
| Posted by: Imperial Sock Puppet 2008-03-19 16:37 |
| #1 At least he is willing to admit when he is wrong. Thank you Scales for your integrity to adjust to the true facts. Too few people do that in this day and age. Hoorah! |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-03-19 15:51 |