Gambit
18 December 2003, 01:45
I'm not quite Grinder, but I thought this was interesting enough to share...
-Gambit
Sending in the Army's Old Guard
WASHINGTON - The United States Army's Old Guard is best known for its ceremonial duties. Its soldiers stand vigil at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery and serve in color guards for visiting dignitaries.
But with the Army stretched thin by duties in Iraq and Afghanistan, some of the Guard's troops were recently assigned to a new and unexpected mission. The Guard's B Company, Pentagon officials said, will join the more than 100,000 new troops being dispatched to carry out missions for the United States Central Command.
The Old Guard, formally the Third Infantry Regiment, will not say where its contingent of 130 or so soldiers is going, but Pentagon officials say the current plan is to send B Company to Djibouti, the tiny East African nation strategically situated on the Horn of Africa, across the strait from Yemen, and a location where the United States has established a base to respond to terrorist threats.
It is the first time that a unit from the Old Guard will be deployed abroad since the Vietnam War, and it underscores the lengths that the Pentagon has had to go to find fresh troops.
The headline out of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's briefing on Thursday was that the United States plans to gradually reduce its military force in Iraq to about 105,000 from about 130,000 over the next several months. As Mr. Rumsfeld put it, the American military presence is being scaled back to 13 brigades from 17, a reduction timed to coincide with the anticipated expansion of Iraq's new and largely untested security forces.
But make no mistake, the American military commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan for the next year is still enormous and putting considerable strains on the armed forces. The boots on the ground are a visible sign of the Bush administration's commitment in Iraq and, as President Bush vowed, to plant the seeds of Democracy in the Middle East. Pentagon officials say that the military can handle the burden for another year.
But military officials are worried that the large-scale deployment will leave the United States "strategically fixed," that is, tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan and short of forces that the nation may need to respond to potential crises on the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere.
According to the Pentagon troop rotation plan announced by Mr. Rumsfeld, 8 of the Army's 10 active divisions will be on their way to Iraq and Afghanistan or returning from those countries over the next several months — the largest single movement of Army forces since World War II. Only two active Army divisions — the Second Infantry Division, which defends South Korea, and the Third Infantry Division, which took Baghdad and only recently returned home — are not part of the rotation. A division typically numbers 15,000 to 20,000 troops.
That's not the whole story. Three Army National Guard brigades — about 5,000 troops each — are being deployed to Iraq. So are the Marines, who left Iraq after turning their responsibilities over to a Polish-led division in September. With the Army short of troops and foreign troops scarce, the Marines are being tapped to serve in Iraq again. The First Marine Division will supply a headquarters that will command a combined force of some 20,000 Marines as well as Army troops.
A major worry for the Army is also that a third year of large-scale deployments in Iraq will make it difficult to retain the noncommissioned officers and experienced reserves that are needed for a quality volunteer force. Reserves will account for more than a third of the troops deployed in Iraq next year. Retention is a lagging indicator, but the anecdotal indications from reservists in Iraq is that some will leave the military at the first opportunity if they conclude that it entails regular yearlong tours away from home.
No doubt the Defense Department projects that the occupation force in 2005 will be a fraction of the current troop presence. But that is what the Defense Department initially projected for September 2003.
The new troop-rotation plan has raised questions about the Pentagon's broader defense policy. Since he came to the Pentagon, Mr. Rumsfeld has preached the gospel of "transformation," which holds that development of advanced intelligence-gathering technology and precision bombing will enable the United States to fight wars with fewer and more agile ground forces.
It is a powerful vision whose proponents assert was validated in Afghanistan, where the United States relied primarily on airstrikes, special forces and proxy fighters furnished by the Northern Alliance, local warlords and disparate tribes to topple the Taliban and destroy Al Qaeda's infrastructure.
But the Iraq war and the need for a large occupying force illustrate the limitations of the transformation program, as does the unsteady peace that has followed the 2001 Afghan campaign. When Mr. Rumsfeld arrived, the scuttlebutt was that Pentagon civilians wanted to cut two Army divisions to free up funds to buy the high-tech reconnaissance and other systems that would support the transformation agenda. Now some lawmakers are asking if it is time to expand the Army.
The Army's Old Guard is a small part of this complicated drama. The longest-serving active-duty unit in the Army, it has acted as the Army's official honor guard since World War II and also has responsibilities for defending the Washington area in the event of a terror attack. Though it is not scheduled to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, the deployment of the Old Guard's B Company, or Bravo Company to the troops, will help fill gaps that have resulted from the strains of the Iraq and Afghan deployments.
One Pentagon official said the decision to deploy a infantry company from the Old Guard was a "good news, bad news story." The good news, he said, is that it shows the Army understands it is at war and is prepared to do what is necessary to support that effort. The bad news, he added, is that it shows the Army is getting near the end of available forces.
The commander of the unit, Col. Charles Taylor, says his soldiers will go through training at Fort Polk, La., before deploying and are up to the task. "Everybody meets high standards to get here," he said in an interview. "This is an active-duty infantry outfit. The Army has the right to put everybody on the table."
If the security situation turns around in Iraq, the strain on the military will turn out to be temporary hardship. But at least some of the troops believe the United States mission in Iraq will drag on.
For months, soldiers at Camp Doha, Kuwait, have been wearing T-shirts that say, "Operation Iraqi Freedom: Mission Accomplished." But recently a new T-shirt has appeared suggesting that the mission may be more open-ended.
It reads, "Operation Iraqi Freedom: Established 2003."
-Gambit
Sending in the Army's Old Guard
WASHINGTON - The United States Army's Old Guard is best known for its ceremonial duties. Its soldiers stand vigil at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery and serve in color guards for visiting dignitaries.
But with the Army stretched thin by duties in Iraq and Afghanistan, some of the Guard's troops were recently assigned to a new and unexpected mission. The Guard's B Company, Pentagon officials said, will join the more than 100,000 new troops being dispatched to carry out missions for the United States Central Command.
The Old Guard, formally the Third Infantry Regiment, will not say where its contingent of 130 or so soldiers is going, but Pentagon officials say the current plan is to send B Company to Djibouti, the tiny East African nation strategically situated on the Horn of Africa, across the strait from Yemen, and a location where the United States has established a base to respond to terrorist threats.
It is the first time that a unit from the Old Guard will be deployed abroad since the Vietnam War, and it underscores the lengths that the Pentagon has had to go to find fresh troops.
The headline out of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's briefing on Thursday was that the United States plans to gradually reduce its military force in Iraq to about 105,000 from about 130,000 over the next several months. As Mr. Rumsfeld put it, the American military presence is being scaled back to 13 brigades from 17, a reduction timed to coincide with the anticipated expansion of Iraq's new and largely untested security forces.
But make no mistake, the American military commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan for the next year is still enormous and putting considerable strains on the armed forces. The boots on the ground are a visible sign of the Bush administration's commitment in Iraq and, as President Bush vowed, to plant the seeds of Democracy in the Middle East. Pentagon officials say that the military can handle the burden for another year.
But military officials are worried that the large-scale deployment will leave the United States "strategically fixed," that is, tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan and short of forces that the nation may need to respond to potential crises on the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere.
According to the Pentagon troop rotation plan announced by Mr. Rumsfeld, 8 of the Army's 10 active divisions will be on their way to Iraq and Afghanistan or returning from those countries over the next several months — the largest single movement of Army forces since World War II. Only two active Army divisions — the Second Infantry Division, which defends South Korea, and the Third Infantry Division, which took Baghdad and only recently returned home — are not part of the rotation. A division typically numbers 15,000 to 20,000 troops.
That's not the whole story. Three Army National Guard brigades — about 5,000 troops each — are being deployed to Iraq. So are the Marines, who left Iraq after turning their responsibilities over to a Polish-led division in September. With the Army short of troops and foreign troops scarce, the Marines are being tapped to serve in Iraq again. The First Marine Division will supply a headquarters that will command a combined force of some 20,000 Marines as well as Army troops.
A major worry for the Army is also that a third year of large-scale deployments in Iraq will make it difficult to retain the noncommissioned officers and experienced reserves that are needed for a quality volunteer force. Reserves will account for more than a third of the troops deployed in Iraq next year. Retention is a lagging indicator, but the anecdotal indications from reservists in Iraq is that some will leave the military at the first opportunity if they conclude that it entails regular yearlong tours away from home.
No doubt the Defense Department projects that the occupation force in 2005 will be a fraction of the current troop presence. But that is what the Defense Department initially projected for September 2003.
The new troop-rotation plan has raised questions about the Pentagon's broader defense policy. Since he came to the Pentagon, Mr. Rumsfeld has preached the gospel of "transformation," which holds that development of advanced intelligence-gathering technology and precision bombing will enable the United States to fight wars with fewer and more agile ground forces.
It is a powerful vision whose proponents assert was validated in Afghanistan, where the United States relied primarily on airstrikes, special forces and proxy fighters furnished by the Northern Alliance, local warlords and disparate tribes to topple the Taliban and destroy Al Qaeda's infrastructure.
But the Iraq war and the need for a large occupying force illustrate the limitations of the transformation program, as does the unsteady peace that has followed the 2001 Afghan campaign. When Mr. Rumsfeld arrived, the scuttlebutt was that Pentagon civilians wanted to cut two Army divisions to free up funds to buy the high-tech reconnaissance and other systems that would support the transformation agenda. Now some lawmakers are asking if it is time to expand the Army.
The Army's Old Guard is a small part of this complicated drama. The longest-serving active-duty unit in the Army, it has acted as the Army's official honor guard since World War II and also has responsibilities for defending the Washington area in the event of a terror attack. Though it is not scheduled to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, the deployment of the Old Guard's B Company, or Bravo Company to the troops, will help fill gaps that have resulted from the strains of the Iraq and Afghan deployments.
One Pentagon official said the decision to deploy a infantry company from the Old Guard was a "good news, bad news story." The good news, he said, is that it shows the Army understands it is at war and is prepared to do what is necessary to support that effort. The bad news, he added, is that it shows the Army is getting near the end of available forces.
The commander of the unit, Col. Charles Taylor, says his soldiers will go through training at Fort Polk, La., before deploying and are up to the task. "Everybody meets high standards to get here," he said in an interview. "This is an active-duty infantry outfit. The Army has the right to put everybody on the table."
If the security situation turns around in Iraq, the strain on the military will turn out to be temporary hardship. But at least some of the troops believe the United States mission in Iraq will drag on.
For months, soldiers at Camp Doha, Kuwait, have been wearing T-shirts that say, "Operation Iraqi Freedom: Mission Accomplished." But recently a new T-shirt has appeared suggesting that the mission may be more open-ended.
It reads, "Operation Iraqi Freedom: Established 2003."