 |
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
 |
||
|
||||
|
ARMY MANPOWER STRETCHED THIN Suppose you worked for a company for a few years, then moved on to other employment. After several years the old company wants you back. But they’re telling you, not asking. The fine print in your termination agreement requires your return if they decide they need you. That’s ridiculous, you would say. This isn’t done in America. But you would be wrong. The “company” I speak of is the “all-volunteer” US Army. The “volunteer” part is joining. You can leave, but later you might find yourself back in uniform. In certain situations the Army can recall you, even years after you have left and moved on with your life. I’m not speaking here of active reserves or National Guard troops who can be called up when the Army needs them. This is expected. At the start of the Afghan and Iraq wars some men and women in the Guard didn’t anticipate war, but they knew they would be activated if it came. The surprise-return situation I referred to is the Individual Ready Reserve. If your name is on that list, the Army can reach out and touch you many years after you leave. Some military folks say you can get your name removed from the IRR. Others say a “stop loss” order now prevents that move. Eventually it will become clear which story is correct. I learned about this interesting aspect of military service last week when I heard that a long-time acquaintance, age 37, was ordered to report for active duty after being out of the Army for six years. He is settled in a new career and has four children. He received a month’s notice to put his affairs in order and report. An eighteen-month tour in Iraq is almost certain. Bill joined the Army in 1994, at age 25 – already an old man in Army terms. Although a college grad, he wasn’t promised Officer Candidate School. He ran, marched and slogged his way through infantry basic training before qualifying for OCS. After being commissioned he served in artillery until 1999, reaching the rank of captain. Why did a college grad with an accounting degree join the Army? To the jaded modern ear Bill’s reasons sound almost quaint: “I wanted to serve the country, and I had to do it a young man. Survival training, crawling through mud, and nights on patrol can be done only at that time in your life.” Bill considered an Army career. His commanding general called him “one of the Army’s finest young officers” and offered him the chance to write his own ticket. But Bill turned it down. “I’m a family man at heart. You can’t do a good job raising kids when you’re away for large blocs of time. I saw that, long term, the Army wasn’t for me.” Bill resigned in late 1999 and began a new career building houses. His family grew to a daughter and three sons. He declined National Guard service; his military commitment ended in 2002. The Army was the distant past – or so he thought, until last week. I spoke with Bill a few days after the shock had passed of seeing his life-plans unravel. Bill worries about how this separation will affect his family. His children will be without him for a year and a half. His family lives far from the support network of other military families. When he comes back – if he does – his littlest guy won’t even remember him. Bill added this: “I was proud of having served. But now it feels like I am being punished for it. Going to war at my age – after being out for six years? It’s crazy. War makes no allowances for rustiness.” We hear a lot today about how recruiting problems might degrade the Army’s ability to achieve its combat mission. Many soldiers have served two – even three – combat tours. The volunteer army is tapped out. A two-front war would be a real problem. “It’s an emergency,” said one commentator. “We need every man we can get.” He has a point, but it’s not the only point to be made. I recalled a sign I once saw posted at a small business: “Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”. The Army’s planners expected a quick war, but things didn’t quite work out that way. Their backup recruiting plan was evidently to recall former officers in their late 30s. Maybe no one thought it would come to that, but here we are. The all-volunteer army works fine during peacetime when it’s all about career opportunities and benefits. Obviously, a wartime Army is less attractive. Britain’s army was all-volunteer in 1914, but once the Great War really got rolling they needed conscription to meet their manpower needs. We will almost certainly need a draft to meet our force-requirements for what some call “World War IV”. Recalling officers who have been out of uniform for six or more years means we are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Beyond the disruption to these men’s lives, activating them cannot be militarily sound. The Army undergoes many changes in a few years. Bill’s military skills are outdated. You don’t just grab a gun and start shooting. In World Wars I and II, as well as the Korean War, the draft worked pretty well. Even during the peacetime era of 1954-1964, a young man expected to be drafted unless he had an educational deferment. During the Vietnam War, however, significant draft-resistance turned the nation’s political calculus on its head. Late in the war the draft was changed to a lottery for 19-year-olds. In the mid-‘70s it was abolished altogether. The draft is the elephant in the parlor politicians hope to ignore. One reason has to do with the ladies. Over the last 30 years feminists pushed hard to open female career opportunities in the military. The military acquiesced. Today, women constitute an essential part of our forces. This means it will be impossible to exempt women from a reinstated draft. Many young women might gladly sit the war out, but they can hardly be excused after such insistence that they be afforded the benefits of military service. Although combat soldiers will still be men, women can fill personnel requirements in many non-combat arms. Thus, the draft is more complex than ever. A draft is disruptive, but it does identify the people best able to serve – typically, fit young people with few family obligations. Using it to solve our personnel shortage will require time and political courage. Meanwhile, we are pulling family-men – a small, politically unimportant group whose inconvenience can safely be ignored – out of settled careers. But this is a political minefield. If some of these men are killed, there will be hell to pay. The protests of Cindy Sheehan, who regrettably lost a son in the war, will seem trivial next to the rage of widows whose middle-aged husbands were “drafted” back into service because the Army ran out of volunteers. I urge reconsideration of this ill-advised policy without delay.
|
|
| ||||||
