Longer combat tours ‘will damage military’

[Snowden]

Longer combat tours ‘will damage military’



Tim Reid in Washington



Democrats have denounced the Bush Administration’s move to extend from a year to 15 months the combat tours of all active-duty US Army soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Announcing the longest combat tours for the US Army since the Second World War, Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, admitted that the Army was stretched by five years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and called it a “difficult” step.

“This recognises that our forces are stretched. There’s no question about that,” Mr Gates said. But he said that there was no way to orchestrate the “surge” of an additional 21,000 troops into Iraq and still give soldiers a clear 12-month break between tours of duty.

The move does not extend to the National Guard, Reserve units or Marines.

Democrats, who are already pushing for legislation that would set a withdrawal date from Iraq, yesterday called it a further escalation of a war that has no end in sight.

“The decision to extend the tours of US service members by three months is an urgent warning that the Administration’s Iraq policy cannot be sustained without doing terrible long-term damage to our military,” said Joseph Biden, a Democrat senator and 2008 presidential hopeful. “We don’t have to guess at the impact on readiness, recruitment and retention.”

Carl Levin, another Senate Democrat, said: “Once again the failures of this administration are being underwritten by our troops.”

Republicans were divided about the move. Senator John Warner, a former Navy Secretary and one of the party’s most respected elder statesmen, said: “I feel strongly that we must carefully monitor the possible risks to the [all-volunteer] system that these extensions may generate.”

Meanwhile, the US military said for the first time that it had uncovered evidence that Iran — a Shia regime — was giving military aid to Sunni insurgents inside Iraq. Weapons that appear to have been made in Iran were recently found in a Sunni-majority area of Iraq, a US spokesman said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1647618.ece

[Old Fart]

Oh B.S.!
My 90 day TDY to Viet Nam from the Phillipines was extended twice!
(all the military buffs are now saying "90 day TDY?, extended twice?, they can't do that!").
Did I Bi*ch about it?, OF COURSE I DID! Did I do my job?, naturally! My 18 month tour in South East Asia turned into 21 months, did I write my Congressman?, no! did I desert?, no!, I just sucked it up and went on with my life.
Out fighting men (and women) will do the same thing and those who have already chosen to make the military a career will continue along that path.
The only thing that has been reinforced in their minds is that "Sh*t Happens"!, something that being in the military in the first place teaches you to accept.
DJH

[Snowden]

In WWII, there wasn't any problem with this -- they were sent to fight and win, and the understanding was that they would come home when they had won. My husband had a friend who, injured, was sent to the hospital in Paris where they put a silver plate in his head. Then he went back to the front lines and continued fighting until the war was over.

That was a different time and a different approach, and it was in reply to this nation being attacked. All those things make a difference. But I do think a contract should be honored by the government; it said a year, or how ever long, and that's how long it should be, if at all possible.

[Shooterman]

Originally Posted by Snowden

In WWII, there wasn't any problem with this -- they were sent to fight and win, and the understanding was that they would come home when they had won. My husband had a friend who, injured, was sent to the hospital in Paris where they put a silver plate in his head. Then he went back to the front lines and continued fighting until the war was over.

That was a different time and a different approach, and it was in reply to this nation being attacked. All those things make a difference. But I do think a contract should be honored by the government; it said a year, or how ever long, and that's how long it should be, if at all possible.

There was little question we had war declared upon us, first by the Japs and then the Krauts. The entire world was in flames and there was little choice but to fight.

It may be argued that FDR had more or less forced the Japs into the preemptive strike on Pearl, but once it happened, the Tiger was awake.

[Old Fart]

Was 9/11 any less an act of war than Pearl Harbor?
The ONLY difference is the fact that we're fighting a philosophy with out national borders and we're fighting it the old way, within national borders.
I personally would be much happier if we just sent small strike teams in and picked off the leaders of the RADICAL Islamic Revolution as soon as they poked their ugly little Turban's up!
Sure, the U(se less) N would scream, national leaders would go nuts, but lets face it, there's nobody left that can afford to go to war with us!
Russia is broke! and the Chinese would be if they weren't selling us all this cheap krap you see in the stores!
The leaders of the countries that presently harbor and finance the Terrorists would clean up the "problem" internally rather than risk having America come in and do it for them.

[Old Fart]

By the way, here's a little chunk of trivia about that "sneak attack'" on Pearl Harbor that might interest you.

A Hawaiian paper that's hanging in the Military Heratage Museum where I work part time dated Sunday, Nov. 30 1941, one week before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
A LOT more people knew they were on the way than you have been lead to believe, we were a country in denial, just as we are now!
DJH

[Shooterman]

Originally Posted by Old Fart

Was 9/11 any less an act of war than Pearl Harbor?
The ONLY difference is the fact that we're fighting a philosophy with out national borders and we're fighting it the old way, within national borders.
I personally would be much happier if we just sent small strike teams in and picked off the leaders of the RADICAL Islamic Revolution as soon as they poked their ugly little Turban's up!
Sure, the U(se less) N would scream, national leaders would go nuts, but lets face it, there's nobody left that can afford to go to war with us!
Russia is broke! and the Chinese would be if they weren't selling us all this cheap krap you see in the stores!
The leaders of the countries that presently harbor and finance the Terrorists would clean up the "problem" internally rather than risk having America come in and do it for them.

I respectfully have to ask, Sir, exactly what would we fight with? What troops? Equiptment? Money? If need be, I envision China putting as many boots on the ground as we have in population. Do we automatically relocate the troops now in Afghanistan and Iraq and put them on the ground against China? Sorry, emotions to the contrary, I certainly do not see us wanting any part of the Dragon.

Of course, in answer to your first question, 9-11 was certainly an attack, financed, I believe, by a bad sumbich by the name of Osama Bin Laden. Osama, we cried, we're coming after you. By all that is holy, we'll have your head on a pike. Well, we hung Saddam and a few of his henchmen.

We've exported democracy, uh-huh.

Just what the hell are we going to fight the Dragon with? Slingshots?