Article

2012-03-18 Home Front: WoT

Brian Stewart: That ticking time bomb is America's exhausted army

[CBC] Bad things happen when a nation tries to fight too many wars with too few troops. The blunt fact about the U.S. army and Marines -- whose difficulties have become the stuff of headlines -- is that they are exhausted and at their wits' end.

Armies wear out rapidly under the unique stress of combat, and for a decade now U.S. ground troops have been rotated through three, four and five combat tours lasting up to a year in each case (15 months at the height of Iraq fighting).

This is not an excuse for the soldier who ran amok in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing 16 civilians, many of them children; nor for the recent burnings of the Qur'an or any of the other almost incomprehensible incidents we regularly hear about in Afghanistan or Iraq.

But at the same time we need to appreciate the high level of mental illness, substance abuse and severe depression that is ravaging American ranks and making such incidents a constant risk.

No other NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
units comes close to the length of time U.S. troops have spent in these wars, nor has anyone else taken anything like the grinding number of casualties.

The Canadian army was seriously tired when it withdrew from Afghanistan combat last year -- yet our ranks could only imagine the far greater strain on U.S. soldiers.

Since 2001, over 6,200 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan; over 47,000 have been maimed.

What's more, almost three-quarters of these casualties have been borne by ground troops and, of these, over 30 per cent suffered serious brain and spine injuries.

'Trauma in the mind'
To me it has always seemed shocking that Washington's current political class, relatively few of whom served in the military, have been so careless in allowing their military units to wear down like this. Perhaps because the generals constant "can do" mantra tends to blot out the reality of exhaustion.

Now, however, a few senior voices, such as former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and former defence secretary Robert Gates, are speaking out about the human cost of these campaigns and of sending large land armies abroad.

And this week, a former commandant of the prestigious U.S. Army War College, retired Gen. Robert Scales, wrote in the Washington Post that if someone wants to place blame for the Kandahar shooting "it should be on a succession of national leaders who fail to recognize that combat units, particularly infantry, just wear out."

A Vietnam veteran, Scales believes today's vets suffer even more than his generation because "close fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan was more pervasive and lasting, thus more likely to cause personal trauma in the mind."

As a news hound, who has covered wars, including Afghanistan, I have a sense of the trauma he is speaking of.

I was always struck by the constant level of tension that surrounded our soldiers whenever they left a main base. It seemed quite different from conventional wars where there were always areas away from the front lines where a soldier could relax a bit.

In Iraq, troops called it 360/365, for the stress came from not knowing from where or when the next firefight would come -- 360 degrees, 365 days a year.

A social time bomb
President Barack Obama
Because I won...
clearly wants to bring the last big contingent of his Afghan troops home as soon as decently possible -- by 2014 at the latest.

But the statistics suggest that this will inevitably transfer the problems of an emotionally drained army to the home front, where many have already taken the brunt of the economic crisis.

Up to 30 per cent of returning soldiers develop serious mental health problems within three to four months of coming home. Up to 25 per cent suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which many psychologists feel is an underestimation.

In recent years it has not been uncommon to have more than 300 suicides annually by U.S. veterans, with failed attempts running at over 1,500 a year.

The Pentagon has also been fighting an epidemic of sexual assault among troops. It reports an astonishing 19,000 military men and women were sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers in 2010 alone.

Meanwhile,
...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings...
rates of domestic violence surged by over 30 per cent among military families between 2006 and 2011, along with drug and alcohol abuse, rates that Gen. Peter Chiarelli says has grown out of a length of combat "our nation has never experienced before."

And if that weren't enough, the growing fear of violence on U.S. bases has been heightened in recent years by a steady infiltration of street gang members into the military.

Every major gang in America is represented on domestic and foreign bases, according to the FBI. Some members are said to have joined up to try to escape gang life. But at least some seem intent on picking up military skills and more deadly weapons.

So I fear this latest crazed act of a deeply disturbed U.S. soldier is not going to be the last of its kind.

Too many tired and joyless men, who have been soldiering since they were teens, are still fighting for a cause that few understand, alongside fickle allies and among a population that partially despises them and their culture.

An exhausted army is prone to disasters, and this one has surely been pushed to the limit.

Posted by Fred 2012-03-18 00:00|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 An exhausted army is prone to disasters, and this one has surely been pushed to the limit.

This article presents what is surely a one-sided and not very well proven point of view.

I could just as easily write an article about how experienced and therefore deadly the American military has become through constant practice and need to think about tactics and present one or two tidbits that got me to that conclusion.

Confirmation bias is an ugly thing.

Posted by no mo uro 2012-03-18 06:29|| 2012-03-18 06:29|| Front Page Top

#2 This is just the Left recycling its Vietnam War stereotypes of the crazed veterans coming home from Vietnam and butchering civilians both abroad and back home.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2012-03-18 06:54|| 2012-03-18 06:54|| Front Page Top

#3 [CBC] Bad things happen when a nation tries to fight too many wars with too few troops. The blunt fact about the U.S. army and Marines -- whose difficulties have become the stuff of headlines -- is that they are exhausted and at their wits' end.

Armies wear out rapidly under the unique stress of combat, and for a decade now U.S. ground troops have been rotated through three, four and five combat tours lasting up to a year in each case (15 months at the height of Iraq fighting).

Not surprising that the CBC has beclowned themselves: The blunt fact is that "too many wars with too few troops" is not the same as "two wars fought over a decade. Another proof that liberals have no functional ability to discern equality, and thus are unfit to be judges and legislators.

But what is pertinent to the point is that Americans (not just american soldiers) have had experience with this sort of 360/365 stress before, during western expansion into regions dominated by tribal peoples not unlike those in Afghanistan and Iraq when it came to combat scruples. The Jacksonian way of war, documented by Walter Russel Mead and Victor Davis Hanson, that advocates high intensity, short duration, "total war" combat operations oriented toward achieving "total victory" (as opposed to "partial" or "local" victory), overcomes the problems cited by the CBC.

Of course the CBC, and their fellow travelers, would scream to high heaven if we actually DID that, but I somehow doubt that they actually have the good health and condition of American troops, much less Americans as a whole, in heart.

Posted by Ptah 2012-03-18 09:05|| 2012-03-18 09:05|| Front Page Top

#4 Oh, and nothing beats relieving the stress of combat on US ground troops than an ARCLIGHT strike.

If the miilitary has forgotten how to do those, I know we have a couple of Rantburg regulars who can come out of retirement to show them how it's done.

At "Cost Plus", it'd be cheaper than two assembly line jobs at Solyndra, and have a better Return On Investment to boot.

Posted by Ptah 2012-03-18 09:10|| 2012-03-18 09:10|| Front Page Top

#5 It's also the cost of a PC military. For thousands of years grunts have had means to let off the stress. Most of those have been outlawed, prohibited, and banished in the name of correctness under the guise of discipline. We've thrown out our social rituals because they're too damn ancient. Instead we substitute analysis, psychotropic drugs, group therapy as modern alternatives. There are consequences. However, I'll assure you that like teaching professionals, the powers to be will not examine what used to provide some results before because, being professionals, they know better and will drive on with their existing programs. We'll have a military as effective as our education system.

Posted by Procopius2k 2012-03-18 09:46|| 2012-03-18 09:46|| Front Page Top

#6 It's interesting that the author, writing from outside the US, doesn't suggest that American troops wouldn't be pulling four of five tours if America's allies would order their troops to march to the sound of the guns instead of the dining hall. (And I don't mean Canada or Britain --they've done their share.) Let's re-write one of the author's sentences a bit:

"To me it has always seemed shocking that ~~Washington's~~ Brussels' current political class have been so careless in allowing ~~their~~ American military units to wear down like this. Perhaps ~~because the generals constant "can do" mantra tends to blot out the~~ the Euros could care less about the reality of dead Americans."

Posted by Matt 2012-03-18 11:54|| 2012-03-18 11:54|| Front Page Top

#7 Yah, Vietnam was the last winless war. We thought.

Posted by Boss Hupusorong4750 2012-03-18 12:52|| 2012-03-18 12:52|| Front Page Top

#8 Not having served in either Iraq or Afghanistan, I can't attack or confirm this story, although I'm forwarding it to my peeps that have been there recently.

But having seen Restrepo, that documentary seems to have summed up Patient Zero scenario for a lot of the behaviors/problems listed in this article. World War II, as bad as it was, lasted half as long, and there were exit points to look at - Berlin and Toyko.

Is that sexual assault number even close to accurate? If so, that's mind boggling.

Posted by Mizzou Mafia 2012-03-18 13:44|| 2012-03-18 13:44|| Front Page Top

#9 No mo uro makes the point. Also, consider a variation on Yamamoto's observation about American capability.

Nobody even mentions the Germans and Japanese anymore.

Posted by Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division 2012-03-18 16:15|| 2012-03-18 16:15|| Front Page Top

#10 Moral to the material, ladies & gents, moral to the material.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2012-03-18 16:31|| 2012-03-18 16:31|| Front Page Top

#11 A study of more than 1,000 prisoners by the group Veterans in Prison put the figure at 9.1%, while Home Office research carried out between 2001 and 2003 concluded that 5% of the prison population were veterans.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/10/armed-forces-veterans-prison-population

Posted by Kojack 2012-03-18 17:00|| 2012-03-18 17:00|| Front Page Top

#12 My concept of war is like "Space Invaders"; take 'em all out.

Yah, Gates said: "Any American President who sends a large land army to Asia, needs to have his head examined."

Retort: zero, zip, nada

Posted by Gleath Slaviling4141 2012-03-18 17:01|| 2012-03-18 17:01|| Front Page Top

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