War’s strain wearing on Army troops, tools

By Dave Moniz, Matt Kelley and Steven Komarow
USA Today

Drawing lessons from his own career, Col. Mat Moten tells his students at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., they could one day have a duty just as important as fighting terrorism: helping rebuild an Army fractured and exhausted by a long and unpopular war.
For Moten, it’s a familiar story, one he first heard as a West Point cadet in 1978. Then, the all-volunteer Army was struggling after Vietnam. “It’s not a cheery message,” Moten says.

It’s a message also echoed last week by Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and 37-year veteran of the Marine Corps, as he called for troops to start leaving Iraq immediately.

“The future of our military is at risk,” Murtha said. “Our military and their families are stretched thin. Many say that the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down, even as our military has lowered its standards.”

Although there’s no agreed-upon standard to determine the war’s overall effect on the military, even those who disagree with Murtha about an immediate withdrawal, including senators such as Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John McCain, R-Ariz., agree that the strains on a force fighting two wars at once are obvious.

A series of Pentagon and congressional reports show the bill for worn-out equipment is climbing, recruiting is suffering and stress has become a serious occupational hazard for troops.

Despite the problems, the Army isn’t about to break, says retired general John Keane, the Army’s vice chief of staff during the Iraq invasion. Morale remains high, and the part-time forces in the National Guard and Army Reserve have a “remarkable” commitment.

The equipment

The war in Iraq is taking the biggest toll on military equipment since the Vietnam War, after which the Pentagon retooled its arsenal during the massive military buildup of the 1980s.

Fixing and replacing Army equipment alone could run from $60 billion to $100 billion, according to retired general Paul Kern, a senior consultant to the Cohen Group and the just-retired head of Army Materiel Command. The total cost for wear-and-tear on equipment is unclear because it is not known how long American troops will be needed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The part-time military has its own equipment problems caused by missions in Iraq and commitments at home. A recent Government Accountability Office report said more than 101,000 pieces of National Guard equipment, including items such as trucks, radios and night vision devices, have been sent overseas, mostly for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s left the Guard short of equipment it needs to respond more quickly to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

The Guard’s top general, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, told USA TODAY in September that a shortage of communications gear hampered the hurricane recovery effort.

“We were underequipped,” Blum said. “We don’t need tanks and attack helicopters and artillery, but we must have state-of-the-art radios.”

Iraq and Afghanistan are putting an extra $8 billion per year of wear and tear on military equipment, according to a report in April from the Congressional Budget Office. Military trucks are being driven at 10 times their peacetime rates; armored vehicles are being used at five times their peacetime rates and helicopters are being flown at twice their usual rates.

Shortages have cropped up in Iraq, such as a lack of protective armor for troops’ bodies and vehicles. Troops also faced shortages of spare parts such as truck tires, and weapons such as machine guns, according to a series of GAO reports.

Gary Motsek, who manages the Army’s program to repair war-torn equipment, says the Army has to repair or rebuild virtually everything that goes to Iraq.

The people

Nowhere is the war’s stress more evident than with the people who make up the military’s “boots on the ground” services.

The ground forces - the Army and Marines - are racing to make Iraq stable before the troops wear out and leave, says Dan Christman, a retired Army lieutenant general who served during the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said last week that the United States went into Iraq with too few troops and doesn’t have sufficient forces to maintain current levels.

“We are grinding down our force structure to the point where we have no force structure,” Hagel said.

The Army is keeping most of its soldiers from retiring or leaving for civilian jobs. It has had to increase its bonuses to keep some highly skilled soldiers - truck drivers, military police, bomb disposal troops - from leaving. The war has made special operations troops so attractive to private contractors that the Pentagon is offering unprecedented bonuses of up to $150,000 to keep some enlisted commandos in the ranks.

“We’re holding our breath in hopes we can steer through this,” says Col. Lance Betros, head of West Point’s history department.

A crucial question is the commitment of units anticipating their third tours in Iraq. That, Betros says, is when the Vietnam-era HHArmy began to fall apart.

The wars are taking a toll on military families, too: According to Army figures, divorce among officers jumped by 78 percent in 2004, though the numbers fell back in fiscal 2005. Divorces among enlisted soldiers increased by 28 percent in 2004 and have stayed at about the same level this year.

Army units are failing to meet Pentagon guidelines to spend two years at home for every year overseas. When the Army’s 101st Airborne Division returned to Iraq this year, it was after an 18-month rest. The 3rd Infantry Division, which is also on its second tour, had a 15-month break.

Recruiting is at a crisis level for the Army. The active-duty Army and the part-time Army National Guard and Army Reserve all missed their 2005 recruiting goals by 8 percent to 20 percent. The three fell short by a combined 24,000 enlistees.

The Army met its recruiting goals in October, the first month of the 2006 fiscal year, but 12 percent of its recruits scored in the lowest category on military entrance tests on science, math and word knowledge, “The Sun” of Baltimore reported this month. That was triple the number - 4 percent - that the Army expects in 2006.

The 2006 recruiting numbers could suffer, despite recruiting incentives that include cash bonuses of $20,000 and enlistments as short as 15 months.

The Pentagon isn’t keeping good enough records to make sure the bonuses are going to recruit the kinds of troops needed, according to a GAO report released last week. The study says the military was unable to fill 112,000 job positions in key specialties in the past year, while the services offered bonuses for specialties that are consistently overfilled.

The U.S. Army is lowering its admission standards in order to make up for a shortage of volunteers. In the coming year, the army will allow up to four percent of the recruits to be of the second lowest aptitude level (Category IV). A year ago, for the first time since 1998, the U.S. Army lowered some requirements for recruits. This, for the fiscal year that ended on September 30, at least 90 percent of new recruits had to be high school graduates, as compared to 92 percent in the year before. Up to 2 percent of recruits could be of Category IV, compared to 1.5 percent in the previous year. These changes meant that the Army was able to accept as many as 2,000 recruits that would have been previously been rejected. Last year, the army wanted to recruit 80,000 new people, but fell 8.5 percent (6,800 recruits) short. That’s the largest shortfall since 1979.

In the last century, as the army increasingly used aptitude tests, and tracked the performance of troops, it became obvious that those with higher scores did better, and were much less likely to be problems (and get tossed out the army.) The army aptitude tests take into account intelligence, as well as psychological suitability for military life and situations. Thus those in Category IV are limited to the number of jobs they are qualified for, are hard to train, and more likely to have problems adjusting to military life. In the late 1970s, about 30 percent of the volunteers were Category IV and V (the lowest level). The army had a lot of trouble with those recruits, and, starting in the early 1980s, eliminated any Category Vs, and sharply reduced the number of Category IVs (usually by insisting they be high school graduates.)

However, over the last two decades, the army has also done a lot of research into training methods, and believes it can sharply reduce the training and discipline problems of Category IVs. This is pretty important, because if you get thousands of Category IV recruits out of basic, you just transfer poorly adapted troops to units throughout the army. You are just going to see lots of NCOs and officers get out themselves, rather than put up with these additional headaches. It will be several years before it is known if this experiment works

NG hooahs will continue to return to broken homes/divorce and unemployment.  I've been back for 9 months I'm still picking up the pieces related to being gone for 16 months begining in 2003.  You don't necessarily have to be KIA/WIA over there, everyone is a casualty of long deployments in this GWOT.

HHC 2/502 RECONDO  RVN 66-67

1FFV Echo LRP 20th INF (ABN)  RVN 67-68

Team 1 - 1

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FROM HELL WE RISE

LRP1, I was one of those lucky enough to come home with all my parts/limbs so there is plenty of fight still in me.  Adapt and overcome!  I see guys coming home to more surgery and physical therapy and I say to myself "all you lost was a wife and a job...could be worst."  RLTW!

First, in Iraq, we have unit rotations.  In Vietnam, we used individual replacements which contributed to placing units into a contast state of flux relative to the experience levels that units possessed.  There is inherent stability and cohesion in unit rotation as opposed to units manned by indivdual replacements.

Second, combined with unit rotation, the overall Iraq combat intentsity level is not comparable to other past casualty producing conflicts.  Thus, impact on the NCO Corps has nowhere reached the level that was found in the "Hollow Army."

The primary reason it was called the "Hollow Army" was not because of any shortage of troops, but rather NCOs.  Through multiple tours in Vietnam, a whole generation of NCOs was lost.  They were lost because those NCOs did 2 or 3 combat tours (or died on them), as opposed to the Officer Corps whose members rarely served more than six months with a line unit.

Furthermore, a key factor in the Division (82d for you leg MFs) achieving and maintaining a high state of readiness across the board after Vietnam, was the fact it locked its NCOs into long stable tours.  No revolving doors, no ticket punching. 

So do we face a broken Army.  No.  Sure, we have equipment issues and some personnel issues.  But we also have an Army that is intent on providing a large measure of stability for all units deploying or returning from Iraq or A-Stan.  And I believe that in the future it will be a stronger and better Army for it.

 Until about 1972-75 there were no troop shortages due to the draft(the draft ended in 1972 if I am not mistaken and those last draftees were on active duty until 1974) being in place. As was noted by OKeefe the shortages of NCOs made the Army suspect even when there were no shortages of troops. 

 After the draft ended the anti military attitude of the American public made the Army a catch all for many troops that shouldn't have been accepted.  In about 1979-80 requirements tightened for enlistments and the economy went down so the Army started getting the troops they needed.  Plus in this period if I am not mistaken drug tests were put into place and they got rid of the dopers.

My personal opinion is the Army is not facing a "Hollow Army" at this time.  As noted by OKeefe the casualities in Iraq are not anywhere near the rates of WWII, Korea or Viet Nam.  Again as he noted the loss of trained NCOs during repetive tours in RVN from death or retirement did severe damage to ability of the Army to work together.  Not only were the troops hurt by this shortage, a bunch of junior officers failed to get proper guidance. 

When the Army went into Iraq in 2003 they were expecting 2000 KIAs just getting to Bagdad.  The biggest one day loss of life during that operation was 11 and that was a helicopter that crashed at Ft Drum.

 However the big difference is in American public acceptance of the troops and they realize that regardless of how they feel about the war the troops deserve nothing but support, and they are giving it to them. 

That is the opposite of Korea where the troops were ignored or Viet Nam where in many cases the troops and their families were subjected to harrassment by anti war types. I had been in for 10 years when I went to RVN in 1965 so I didn't really care if the public gave me a parade or liked me , but some of the younger troops had problems with the public hostility.

The main problem that caused the most problem was drugs.  In Germany in 1959-60 period a cook in my company got caught with 4 MJ cigarettes and got 5 years and a DD.  By 1969-70 a CO would have been glad he wasn't selling and would have given him a Art 15 and let it go. 

The continous tours are a problem and I was disappointed that the draft was not instituted after 9/11.  A survey taken after that showed about 75% of the US public would have suported a draft.  Now it wouldn't fly.

I do not think the Army is going to become "Hollow" but it needs to be expanded and the equipment needs replacment and updating.

IN closing let me say I have nothing but admiration for the job the troops are doing, when the generals and politicians are having trouble figuring out how to fight and win the war.  RR I'm sorry to hear about the divorce and job loss, I went through a divorce between tours, but in all fairness it was my fault because I was drinking too much. The Army should know that prolonged separations will cause divorces.  Even when Korea was a hardship tour in the 50's and 60's there were a lot of divorces and that wasn't even during a war.  As far as NG and reservists on AD losing their jobs the fed ought to take immediate and strong action to prevent that problem. 

The NG and Reserves are a different matter.  If the soldiers in these components wanted to spend that much time on these deployments they would be on active duty.  But with the extreme cuts in the Army in the mid-90's and the Administrations refusal to increase the active force back to a sufficient force there is no other choice.

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American GI.  One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

"History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight someone who has the will to fight will take over." COLONEL BULL SIMONS

Moral is high but strained, every task during a standard work week is "important"(all B.S) so real training is few and far inbetween. I'm sorry but I think that that story will ring true. 

"Look around, this is old school, this is Cavalry!" Bruce Willis  actor eastern Iraqi

FORWARD!!!