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Home Front
Army Reserve fears troop exodus
2003-09-30
If the United States is unable to recruit significantly more international troops or quell the violence in Iraq in the next few months, it could trigger an exodus of active and reserve forces, the head of the U.S. Army Reserve said Monday.
Perhaps they should work on a recruiting campaign, then. I think there are probably lots of people who're patriotic enough to sign up who aren't impressed at the thought of garrison duty at Fort Riley when the shooting dies down. If I still bent in the middle, I'da done it a couple years ago...
Lt. Gen. James Helmly, chief of the 205,000-member Army Reserve, said he and other Pentagon leaders will be monitoring retention rates closely next year, when problems could begin to become apparent for full-time and part-time soldiers coming off long tours of duty in Iraq. "Retention is what I am most worried about. It is my No. 1 concern," Helmly told USA TODAY’s editorial board. "This is the first extended-duration war the country has fought with an all-volunteer force." Helmly described the war on terrorism as an unprecedented test of the 30-year-old all-volunteer military. Historically, he said, the National Guard and Reserve were designed to mobilize for big wars and then bring soldiers home quickly. Today, he said, they have "entered a brave new world" where large numbers of troops will have to be deployed for long periods.
Signing up for an extended stint in the regulars implies they get to keep you even when all the Bad Guys are dead. When you're no longer needed as a reservist, you get to go back to being a civilian most of the time. It has its attractions...
Counting training time and year-long tours in Iraq, some Army Reserve soldiers could be mobilized for 15 months or more. Helmly described the situation facing soldiers in Iraq as "stressed" but said he could not characterize it as at a "breaking point." The stresses facing the nation’s reservists were demonstrated again this week when the National Guard announced it had alerted a combat brigade from Washington state that it could be sent to Iraq next year if a third block of international troops cannot be recruited to join the British and Polish-led divisions now in Iraq. Guard officials said Monday that the 5,000-member 81st Army National Guard brigade from Washington state has been notified that it could be called to active duty.
This is the weekend warriors' opportunity to show they can pull their weight. It's also the regular army's opportunity to treat them as well as it does the regulars, which means to quite screwing around with 179-day limits...
Helmly said a huge factor in Iraq will be the Pentagon’s ability to train an Iraqi army and security force. The Defense Department recently announced plans to accelerate the development of an Iraqi army, pushing the goal from 12,000 troops to 40,000 troops in the next year. The Army National Guard and Army Reserve have about one-fourth of their troops — nearly 129,000 soldiers — on active duty. The active-duty Army and the Army Reserve both met their recruiting goals for the fiscal year that ends today. The Army National Guard, however, is expected to fall about 15% short of its recruiting goal of 62,000 soldiers.
And I’ll wager they’ll be the ones hurt most by retention losses.
Although the Guard and Reserve say their retention rates have not suffered this year, the figures could be misleading. Under an order known as "stop loss," soldiers on active duty are prohibited from leaving the service until their tours end.
Yeah, that kind of skews the numbers.
Active-duty and Reserve commanders fear that when U.S. soldiers on yearlong rotations come home next year, many will choose to leave the service.
The Reserves will be hurt most, those folks who leave active duty will also be less likely to join the Reserves or the Guard. Expect the state governors to scream about the Guard as well. We need to bring a couple more AD light divisions on line.
Posted by:Steve

#5  A volunteer force drawn from the Democracy it protects is the very best insurance against adventurism. This kind of worrying about being able to retain people to have an effective force is desirable: you do not "waste" people like these on irrelevant missions.

One of these days, the Left is going to figure that out, and is going to start verbally attacking individual military personnel, hoping to discourage them from resigning, and to discourage others from signing up. Ironically, the strictures put on them by the principle of civilian control of the military prevents them from responding. Thus, it will be up to us, as citizens, to step in and confront the lefties when we see them jeering our military men.
Posted by: Ptah   2003-9-30 5:43:34 PM  

#4  Perfect world... perfect word causes corel to die.
Posted by: Shipman   2003-9-30 1:02:32 PM  

#3  In a perfect word.... what additional active duty force (Army) is needed? A couple of Brigades? A couple of light Divsions?
Posted by: Shipman   2003-9-30 1:01:31 PM  

#2  Old Patriot's right on the money. We need to define our mission better. Everything can't be a priority. The WOT I understand and fully support (obviously). Nation building is a messy business though. This was something the president didn't want to get into initially. Hopefully Iraq & Afghanistan will be the exception rather then the rule. We also need a third party - the partisan politics are so far old it's pathetic and hurting our country. Some of the politicos act like third grade kids.
Posted by: Jarhead   2003-9-30 11:20:04 AM  

#1  I've served in both the Active military and in the Reserves. My uncle was the Sergeant Major for an Army National Guard unit that's currently on active duty in Iraq. As a retiree, I'm also plugged into the local gossip here in Co. Springs. I've been listening to a LOT of speculation along these lines. Unfortunately, there's no clear concensus of what MAY happen in the future.

Some of the Guard and Reserve units see the Iraq and Afghanistan demands as the biggest affirmation of their commitment to the United States that could ever be expressed. Quite a few of those who have been deployed and have returned to CONUS admit readily they learned far more about their specilaty by participating in what they classify (and which I have to agree) is a strong combat role. There is a portion of these soldiers that signed up to be weekend warriors, or for the educational benefits, or because it impressed their bosses, and had no expectation of ever being deployed. The majority of these people will leave - their ideal of what Reserve/Guard duty has been shattered, and they want no part of war. Some will stay, having developed a sense of pride and patriotism that cannot be denied, and who feel they're doing something for their nation above and beyond the simple demands of citizenship. There's also a group in the middle - not only in the non-active components, but in the active forces as well - that are going to be doing some serious soul-searching. They will have to decide whether they want to make a serious commitment to military service, or if their lives should lead them elsewhere.

Right now, we're forced to rely too heavily on Reserve and Guard units, because the Active force was cut too severely, and too quickly. The Government also needs to make a commitment - to developing an armed force that can support this nation's role in world affairs, whatever that role may be. Right now, we're about two active divisions and a few air wings short. The Navy has too few ships to both patrol sea lanes and support deployments overseas, especially extended deployments. Our President and Congress will both have to do some serious planning, and commit to the level of miitary might we NEED. That means a fight over funds. The Democratic Party faces a dilema - they're going to have to cut social spending and transfer that money to military commitments, and they're going to have to reverse themselves on some of the social experiments they've forced on the military, or they're going to become irrelevant. This nation needs a strong two- (or more) party political system in order to meet the needs of all citizens. It also needs a political concensus that the military will be funded at an adequate level to meet the requirements the president and congress have saddled them to meet.

I think this coming presidential campaign is going to get "very interesting".
Posted by: Old Patriot   2003-9-30 11:00:04 AM  

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