[BretLudwig]

Admitting Failure

The Armed Forces couldnt man the surge until they lowered standards.

by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

"Sgt. Thomas X. Hammes knew that, unlike some bad Hollywood movie, the
band of thieves, social misfits, even murderers under his leadership would
not transform into perfect Marines through some magic formula of tough love
and fatherly motivation. Half the men in his platoon needed a swift kick
out of the service, not more time in it.

€œWe kind of got the worst of the guys at the time,€� said Hammes.
€œProbably the worst in the history of the Marine Corps.€�

The year was 1976. Young T.X. Hammes was a platoon leader at one of the
most inglorious times in the Corps proud tradition. The Vietnam War had
just decimated the nations Armed Forces, the draft was gone, and the
fabled Third Battalion, 3rd Marines was being infused with new recruits
brought in under dramatically reduced standards.

€œAll the other units dumped their problems on us,€� Hammes said,
recalling the junkies and drunkards, the frequent attacks on officers,
even riots. €œAll that came together primarily because we went to
low-quality recruiting. You cant make a silk purse out of a sows ear
now matter how hard you try.€�

For Hammes, now a retired colonel, and others with long memories,
todays military looks a lot like that of 1976. Even more alarming,
contrary to predictions that the Army is breaking under the strain of
protracted war, most experts say it can continue operating as is€”though
it will resemble no military we might recognize or be proud of.

In January 2007, the Bush administration announced a new strategy, a
€œsurge€� of troops into Iraq, following a well-circulated
counterinsurgency template by American Enterprise Institute fellow
Frederick Kagan and now-retired Army Gen. Jack Keane. There were
assurances that more €œboots on the ground€� would lead to some
stability in insurgent enclaves, an independent Iraqi national defense,
and new legitimacy for the central government€”at least enough to justify
the phased withdrawal of combat brigades all but mandated by American
voters in the 2006 midterm elections.

As Gen. David Petraeus shifted into his role as Olympian front man, the
administration did nothing to discourage the emerging €œsix month€�
script, known on snarky blogs as €œa Friedman,€� after columnist Thomas
Friedmans many declarations that a critical turn in Iraq is just six
months away.

First, Petraeus had six crucial months to create €œa space€� for the
surge to work before returning to Congress with a report in September
2007. After those anticlimactic fall hearings, administration cheerleaders
like Roll Call editor Mort Kondracke said the stainless general had
€œbought President Bush an additional six months of running room in
Iraq.€� Then, six months later, the April hearings emphasized the surge
€œsuccess€� narrative and drawdown, by Aug. 1, to about 140,000
troops€”just above pre-surge levels.

But the real news was the announcement of a €œpause€� in further force
reductions. Meanwhile, no less than 13 National Guard brigades have been
called up for deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan from the end of this
fiscal year through 2009, ostensibly to replace active combat and
noncombat brigades.

Surge supporters say the strategy accomplished its goal of reducing
violence. To what end is still unknown. Stateside, the surge provided the
Bush administration and its Republican foot soldiers with a valuable grace
period, perhaps until the fall elections. For now, Americans are
preoccupied with mortgages and miles per gallon.

But a growing chorus from the highest echelon of the military suggests the
surge was an elaborate farce that stuck a multi-billion-dollar Band-Aid on
a gaping wound while escalating the disintegration of the Armed Forces.

€œThe surge, although good for field commanders in Iraq, was a disaster
for the Army and Marines, which could only sustain the full increase for
about three months,€� retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan, now a fellow at
Harvards Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, wrote in
the Orlando Sentinel. €œThats when the realities of 15-month
deployments forced a decision to end it.€�

He told TAC more recently, €œWe cannot replace them out there without a
full mobilization, without total access to the reserve and the National
Guard. In the situation now, we cannot do that ... we either have to
change our strategy or make our Army bigger.€�

Lawrence J. Korb, former Reagan defense official and retired Navy captain,
is less diplomatic. €œ[Petraeuss] main concern is his strategy,€� he
told TAC. €œHe is putting his interest, which is the battlefield, before
the long-term interest of the Army and of the country.€�

There is little or no flexibility in todays operational force, which
leads many to question what would happen if the global war on terror
really went global. At Slate, Fred Kaplan recently took inventory of the
Armys 43 combat brigades. He counted 16 currently in Iraq and
Afghanistan, 20 in €œdwell time€� between deployments, one in Korea, one
in transit, another doing global defense, one for €œhomeland defense,€�
and the rest unavailable.

€œThe Army is in a zero-sum state: No more soldiers can be sent to
Afghanistan without a one-for-one reduction in Iraq,€� Kaplan wrote last
month. He was responding to talk about sending more troops to Afghanistan
to help beat back the Taliban€”an idea the Pentagon swiftly kyboshed.
(Some 3,200 Iraq-weathered Marines were sent this spring, bringing the
total American forces in Afghanistan to 35,000.)

€œWe really have to get down in Iraq below 15 brigade combat teams for us
to consider adding multiple additional brigades to Afghanistan,€� Pentagon
spokesman Geoff Morrell said on May 6. €œThe president €¦ would consider
the prospect of plussing up in Afghanistan beyond the 34,000 troops that
we have there right now, but €¦ in all likelihood thats going to
come€¦ very late in his tenure, if it comes at all under his tenure.€�

Meanwhile, critics charge that the rigid deployment tempo could be the
Armys physical and emotional undoing. The current target for brigade
rotations is a 1:2 ratio€”one year on, two off. (1:4 is healthiest.)
While experts say 1:2 is the dividing line between force sustainability
and a force €œkiller,€� all accounts put the current scheme closer to a
dangerous 1:1 ratio. For the Marines, its closer to seven months on,
seven off.

€œGiven the current theater demand for Army forces, we are unable to
provide a sustainable tempo of deployments for our soldiers and families.
Equipment used repeatedly in harsh environments is wearing out more
rapidly than programmed €¦ overall, our readiness is being consumed as
fast as we can build it,€� Gen. Richard Cody, Army Vice Chief of Staff,
told the House Armed Services Committee in April. €œIve never seen our
lack of strategic depth be where it is today.€�

Cody plans to retire this summer. He joins a growing line at, or already
out, the door. In March, Adm. William Fallon, head of U.S. Central
Command, was reportedly nudged into retirement after crossing the Golden
Circle too many times. €œFallon has reportedly argued with Petraeus over
the issue of how many US troops should remain in Iraq and for how long,
citing other threats as a reason to lower troop levels in Iraq and accept
an elevated level of risk there,€� Alex Koppelman wrote for Salon.

Moreover, an €œidentity crisis€� in the field is taking its toll. The
National Guard and Reserves know all about €œcross leveling,€� the
practice of plucking troops from different units to fill gaps in
active-duty missions. They also know about being deployed to Iraq to do
jobs they were never trained for€”like guarding prisoners. €œThere was
no discussion at all. They said move em and we moved em,€� said
retired Col. Janice Karpinksi, who commanded a National Guard brigade
providing security for Iraqi prisons in 2003. She insists that none of her
units€”one of which was implicated in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal€”was
trained for the mission.

In a recent clarion call, The King and I: The Impending Crisis in Field
Artillerys Ability to Provide Fire Support to Maneuver Commanders, Army
Cols. Sean MacFarland, Michael Shields, and Jeffrey Snow are blunt: using
field artillery to plug holes in non-artillery missions has left the FA
€œa dead branch walking€�€”diminished and possibly unable to engage
effectively in the €œnext war€� without immediate intervention.

€œIf not for stop move/stop loss, attrition for FA Captains would top
17%,€� the colonels wrote. €œThe rationale that we heard most often in
our discussion with our own departing officers is a lack of job
satisfaction. In other words, they didnt sign up for motorized
infantry, transition team membership, €˜in lieu of transportation
units, detainee camp guards, or any other of a number of hole-filler duty
descriptions. They wanted to be artillery officers and ended up being
anything but.€� This frustration only compounds the stress from the
force-wide problem of €œrepeated deployments,€� they added.

€œ[The tempo] is continuing to wear down the Army to the point of
exhaustion,€� said Lt. Col. Gian Gentile, who during his second tour in
Iraq commanded a cavalry squadron in the 4th infantry division. Thats
why a disproportionate number of junior and field-grade officers have been
leaving the service, he told TAC. Despite steady retention figures on the
books, he said, the Armys best and brightest€”particularly junior and
field-grade officers€”are quitting out of weariness, disgust, or desire
to raise families. After two or three combat tours, he added, €œyou
cant question their patriotism.€�

An annual shortfall of 3,000 captains is expected as the Army and Marines
ramp up with new personnel over the next few years. Furthermore, €œvery
good people€� are leaving, according to Hammes, and the Army has had to
rush promotions to compensate. Non-commissioned officers€”men and women
who work closest with soldiers in training, discipline, and on the
battlefield€”are being ripped from that invaluable role and hurried
through Officer Candidate School. €œIt means people with combat
experience but with no broader experience are being promoted very rapidly
just to fill the gaps,€� said Hammes. By April 1, 610,877 of the 1.7
million military personnel who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan had done
more than one tour. Korb points out that all but one combat-ready Army
brigade have been deployed at least once, while 13 have been deployed
twice, 19 have done three tours, and six have gone four times.

In his outline for the surge strategy, €œChoosing Victory: A Plan for
Success in Iraq,€� Frederick Kagan dismissed suggestions that the surge
would break the Army. €œLosing now will certainly break the force,€� he
wrote. €œVictory increases the morale of the soldiers and officers.€�

But what if there is no victory and no defeat, just a protracted
peacekeeping mission requiring at least 10 to 15 combat brigades at a
clip? Kagan had plenty of answers. Need more troops in the field?
€œGround forces must accept longer tours for several years. National
Guard units will have to accept increased deployments during this
period,€� he wrote, calling for the addition of 60,000 soldiers and
Marines over the next two years. Shortage of equipment? Transfer it from
the non-deployed active duty National Guard and Reserve units. Apparently
nobody told him that these sources had already been picked over.

While 12 percent of the Guard and Reserves are currently activated, some
soldier-supplying states have been hit harder than others. For example,
only 36 percent of Guard troops are available to the governor for civil
defense in Mississippi. At the same time, 49 percent of total Guard
equipment is being used overseas, while 44 percent of €œdual use€�
equipment€”things that can be used in a hurricane as well as the
battlefield€”has been shipped out.

The Guard and Reserves once made up nearly half the forces in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The Guard currently follows a one year on, three and a half
years off balance, but military policymakers have been talking about
tapping further into these resources. John Goheen, spokesman for the
National Guard Association of the United States, said there hasnt been
an exodus of part-time soldiers from the ranks yet. But, €œin terms of
response €¦ some units would have a difficult time.€�

President Bushs answer was to authorize the Army and Marine Corps to
add 92,000 new personnel by 2012. This phantom surge may eventually
resolve short-term manpower issues, but it breeds an entirely new set of
problems for recruitment. Back to 1976.

€œIt got really bad. It takes a relatively small number to tie it all in
knots,€� Hammes said, recalling the €œtrash€� that ended up on his
doorstep. Are we headed there now? You bet, he says€”if we arent there
already.

The Army, Marines, and Reserves have been hitting their annual recruitment
and retention targets since 2006, but attempts to recover from a disastrous
recruiting year in 2005 may have damaged the long-term health of the
services.

Lowering standards across the board has opened the gates to people who
would previously have been rejected from duty. In 2007, the Army accepted
511 applicants with felony convictions out of a total of 12,057 criminal
waivers. The Army is also accepting more recruits with physical waivers
and more high-school dropouts€”about 25 percent of its annual
enlistments, the highest number since the 1970s. In 2005, the Army also
started enlisting more men and women who scored in the lowest third of the
service aptitude test. Studies show that recruits with lower scores and
disciplinary waivers are likely to drop out early or perform poorly.

To entice even these lackluster enlistees, the Army has found that cold
cash goes a long way. New recruits can expect more than $40,000 for just
signing up. High-school seniors who enlist early can make $28,000 and get
an additional $20,000 if they promise to ship out within 30 days of
graduation. The Pentagon spent more than $1 billion in 2006 on enlistment
bonuses alone. Meanwhile, college benefits are being underplayed in order
to keep soldiers on active duty longer. The Pentagon is backing a new GI
Bill that would only offer full college tuition after six years of
service.

As for retention, there is the stop-loss policy, which has kept some
58,300 soldiers from leaving the Army since 2002 and currently affects
about 12,235 troops. (Army leaders dont expect the policy to be lifted
until at least 2009.) And there are hefty re-enlistment incentives:
Special Forces get upwards of $150,000 to stay on, while captains are
being enticed to stay with a new $35,000 bonus package. Of the 18,000
eligible officers last year, 67 percent took part.

In 1976, Gen. Louis H. Wilson Jr., head of the Marine Corps, came in and
cleaned house. At least 25,000 Marines were discharged for disciplinary
problems or substandard performance. Hammes was able to get rid of half of
his platoon. It was the first step in a 10- to 15-year rebuilding of the
nations Armed Forces.

That was peacetime; today we fight €œa long war.€� While generals sound
the alarms for the health of their ranks, last years surge promised
more serial deployments. Some think the Army is about to break, others
think it can limp along indefinitely as it is. Neither prospect is very
promising.

But as long as there isnt a draft, Americans dont pay much attention
to how our warrior class changes€”whether its ceasing to be a corps of
citizen-soldiers, defined by duty to family and community, and is becoming
instead a repository for low-performing misfits or turning into a lusty
Roman legion held together by enormous cash incentives.

€œIts already looking very different than our ideal military,€� said
Hammes. He would know. "


http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_06_02/article1.html

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