General sounds alarm on U.S. Army training

[unhappycamper]

General sounds alarm on U.S. Army training
By Nancy A Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Wednesday, March 3, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Army's ability to train its forces is "increasingly at risk" because of the nation's protracted commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan, the general in charge of training has told the Army's chief of staff.

In a Feb. 16 memo to Gen. George W. Casey, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, says that the Army has lost thousands of uniformed trainers because of troop demands in Iraq and Afghanistan, has had to put junior officers in charge of some key training functions and has delayed initial instruction for nearly 500 pilots because it doesn't have enough trainers.

Only 30 percent of the instructors at Army training schools are in the military, Dempsey says, with the Army increasingly dependent on outside contractors.

"We are behind in integrating lessons learned, developing training and updating doctrine," Dempsey wrote in the memo, a copy of which McClatchy obtained. "We are undermanned in our efforts to design the future Army."

Dempsey's warning comes as the Obama administration presses ahead with plans to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan by 30,000 and has committed a growing number of military trainers to doubling the size of the Afghan security forces. Since Dempsey took command of TRADOC in December 2008, the command has sent 889 troops, contractors and civilians to Iraq and 675 to Afghanistan.


Rest of article at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/03/89799/general-sounds-alarm-on-us-army.html

[Captain Hilts]

1. They do not have enough people for two wars. War on the cheap. Logistically and politically.

If it's not important enough for a full effort, then you shouldn't be at war.

[Donnachaidh]

2. if this depression continues to deepen they will have enough people

Cannon fodder is cheap when you get rising double digit unemployment.

[Captain Hilts]

3. We've already got an economic draft. And, with universal access to healthcare, there would

be one fewer reason to enlist. As of now, if you're a young guy with a pregnant girlfriend, enlisting is your only option.

[fasttense]

4. Contracting out military functions caused this mess.

When the military agreed to contract out noncombat functions, they lost their ability to perform routine functions and retain troops.

Functions such as running training camps or working at the Pentagon use to be used to rotate soldiers out of combat. They allowed soldiers a break from the war while still performing useful functions within the military. But when these jobs were sent off to bribe Dick Cheney through Halliburton KBR, where would the extra soldier go? They were put into combat and left there for longer and longer periods of time. So, fewer and fewer people enlisted, and reenlisted, and fewer and fewer soldier were needed. It has become a vicious circle.

Now the Army is down to bare bones, with no in-house abilities in noncombat functions so they must depend on more and more contractors, which stress out the combat troops more and more.