Bloodless Coup

If you don't want soldiers like these in Iraq, imagine the ones who'll be there when Kerry increases the armed forces by 40,000. Unless he's thinking about imposing a draft, this would simply mean lowering the acceptable ASVAB scores for entrance into the military. And as you can tell from this article, we're not exactly screening out real gems right now.

To be fair to these soldiers, I'm not sure they're so bad. Fighting, breaking curfew, and drinking are not uncommon in the military. There's a degree to which these are developmentally appropriate for the ages most likely to enlist. You know what they say, cops and criminals have similar personalities, and the military is like this as well, but the difference in what they seek to accomplish is a meaningful difference. I find it unlikely they don't appreciate the difference between screwing around on base and in the field, but I also wonder how accurate a picture you have of our military if this surprises you. These are people who are going to risk their lives for their country, to protect you. Give 'em a break.

What I'm complaing about here is not the test scores of the people we let into the military - it's that we are rushing untrained members of the Guard in to fill roles they are not yet trained or ready to fill.

Tom Ricks is one of the best military affairs/Pentagon reporters working today. He has both a historical bent (he won a Pulitzer for the first part of his trilogy on the American Army in WWII) and is good with individuals (he was "embedded" with the 101st Air Assault in the recent war, and wrote a book about the difficulties in command. The general he wrote about, Petraeus, is now in charge of the training program for the entire Iraqi army).

If Ricks thinks there is something screwy in the Guard units we are sending, it would pay to read his stuff carefully.

In any event, Morris, it isn't very difficult to get the numbers of active-duty personel up. If I remember correctly, the military was turning people away just after 9/11 (and if we aren't anymore, perhaps we should wonder about the popularity of the war we are fighting?). The military competes on the job market like anyone else. If we need more qualified bodies, we can pay more. It wouldn't be hard to get 40k more (or more), it just would cost more.

Baltar, this is more your area than mine, but one of the other "loss of power" things that bothers me about current foreign policy - beyond what I've already articulated in the other thread - is the effect on the U.S.'s military preparedness, particularly in terms of personnel. While Ricks focuses on the problems of cobbling together disparate guard units, I wonder about the effect this kind of thing as well as the extended deployments will have for recruiting. I think the myth about joining the guard and never having to do more than work flood duty (which is important work, as we are seeing in the wake of Ivan) has been exploded. And yes, I know someone will say "well, they should have known better when they signed up." Yes, they should have, but now do know better. I have no idea what the result will be for regular military, but with some of the dissatisfaction rumbling among military families, it seems like there is bound to be a dropoff in re-enlistment. Of course, I would love to see some projections or data about this. So, as I started, Baltar? Do you have any resources that suggest a trend in this area?

Binky,
If I recall, we sent the Guard over to Iraq during Desert Storm, so it takes complete ignorance of the Guard's recent history (not that that's out of the question) to think they'd only be on flood duty.

Baltar,
You and Binky suggest a dropoff in reenlistment, I haven't been able to find anything beyond what's only military web sites, that saying that enlistments are as high as ever. I might offer a plausible explanation that these soldiers believe in how we're fighting this war on terrorism, and I suggest that they're actually being used to protect America, so that's probably making them feel good about what they're doing, though I know it must be hard on them and their families to get through these long deployments. I have no history with this particular journalist, but the specific things he's pointed out in this article give me no cause for alarm, maybe he's saving the real stuff for closer to November. I know that not everyone has the personality to handle this kind of service, and I think it would pay to appreciate those who are willing to protect this country by choice. I haven't looked at the salaries for a while, but from what I remember they're not exactly competitive; of course I'd prefer our soldiers join because of duty to country rather than essentially use money to motivate them like mercenaries. Of course, this is a difference you and I have on foreign policy as well I think.

maybe halliburton should stop gouging the government out of "duty to country" as well?

Well, Morris, maybe the history is clear to you and me, but not to everyone. Or perhaps instead of complete ignorance it could be complete optimism or complete denial. Or then, there is the ever popular dictum I learned from Baltar: "recruiters lie."

And like I said, I haven't seen good data or projections on reenlistment, but I'm curious. I'm just going by the sense of the situation I get from people I talk to (the "I'm glad I'm back and I don't want to go again"), some military blogs I've read, and attitudes of families ("I want my grandson home and don't want him re-enlisting").

And Morris, you say: "I'd prefer our soldiers join because of duty to country rather than essentially use money to motivate them like mercenaries." They must be joining out of duty to country, because we're paying them at levels where they can barely make ends meet and support their families. I am less concerned about mercenaries than I am soldiers and sailors feeding their families when I see figures like this. And yes, I know it's possible to make more money in the military. I had a friend who was a nuclear engineer (college degree) on a nuclear sub who not only raked it in hand over fist, but also saved it all because he was on the boat 6 months a year. Again, I will call on Baltar for data about who is getting wounded and killed in Iraq, but I doubt it's the eighty grand a year nuclear engineers.

Yes "Recruiters lie" - absolutely. It's their job to get people to join up, not to give accurate information. I presume we all know that. If not from logic or personal experience or knowledge of how the military functions, then at least from watching Private Benjamin.

What I learned from Private Benjamin is that "mascara runs." ;)

of course, Private Benjamin provides yet more evidence of the liberal bias in Hollywood. really, Armand, where do you get your information?

Morris,

I think you are a bit mistaken on some issues. The National Guard only contributed about 62,000 troops to desert storm (out of a total of 665,000 US troops - only 10% were Guard). Today, over 50,000 of the 130,000 troops in Iraq are National Guard (as a percentage, significantly higher than Desert Storm, though as a raw figure, about the same). The difference is, however, that the Guard mobilization for Desert Storm was of much shorter duration (the conflict was much shorter), where today the Guard is called up for extended tours (1 to 3 months of pre-Iraq training/retraining, 6 to 9 months in Iraq, then a month or two of refitting before demobilization). The Guard is significantly more stressed by Iraqi Freedom than it ever was by Desert Storm.

Retention rates in the Guard are about average. Though that statement should be taken with a grain of salt. As Phil Carter (the guy who runs the very necessary website "Intel-Dump") points to in the LA times article, the post-Iraq Guard units are retaining only 75 - 70% of their members (average for the Guard is more like 80 to 85%). Hence, while there is not a recruitment/retention problem in the Guard today, there is likely to be one as more and more units rotate through Iraq (and these numbers do not reflect the experiences of the Guard units working through the much more violent insurgency going on in Iraq right now). Again, as Phil Carter notes in his analysis, Guard units need time to refit/recover/find replacements after every rotation, but if the present rate of use of units continues, they won't get it. This will effect "call the guard out for floods" issues, though it doesn't seem to do so now.

We are going to meet FY2004 (active duty) recruitment targets, but only because the US military is putting additional efforts (and paying higher recruitment bonuses) to do so. Additionally, there appears to be an ongoing problem of retaining the some of the most valuable members: the junior officers (Lieutenants and Captains) and the Special Forces. Both groups of soldiers are being recruited heavily by the highly paying private sector. I don't want my soldiers motivated entirely be money, either, but they won't work for peanuts either.

Overall, while the military is not running out of bodies (though they are running out of units: something like 2/3rd of active duty units are either in Iraq or just returned; both sets are unavailable in case the ballon goes up elsewhere)the trend lines are not great. All the yellow ribbons in the world don't take the place of armored Humvees, real flak vests and high enough pay to take care of their families.

Hey, thanks for the facts and figures. I didn't realize the proportion was so different.

And Joshua, you've got me wondering, since they are popping up in your posts everywhere, how is the Halliburton reference going to make an appearance in the pirate thread? ;) It's always good to have a leit motif.

Baltar,
I said Guard troops were sent to Desert Storm, not that they were the major part of that force, I think you're characterization of that as "wrong" only exists in Kerryland. Maybe he should have thought about the imperative of armored Humvees when voting against the money to refit them.

It's interesting that on the one hand you talk about soldiers needing money to take care of their families, but also seem to suggest we're meeting recruitment targets only because of bonuses, etc. So when Kerry offers bonuses he will be taking care of families, but when Bush does it he's propping up a failed policy? I'm usually the one criticized for ascribing motives here, but you're sure getting close to it.

Binky,
Certainly E-1's don't make a lot of money, but usually they get promoted to a higher rank within their first year. If you think about it, the lousy salary you link is equivalent to a little over $6 an hour at a full time job. For those who go in with just a high school degree, this is about what they can expect in the private sector as well. If someone has a couple years of college, they get to a higher rank (I think it's E-4, but don't quote me) when they complete basic training (or at least they did ten years ago, when I last looked into it).

Armand,
I think maybe your preference for Private Benjamin as a recruitment film over my choice of Starship Troopers may explain our different viewpoints on more than just this issue.

Morris,

We're going to have to work out some sort of system where you do at least a bit of research before posting. How come I always am the one finding links showcasing your errors?

Binky argued that the Ricks article showed that overall National Guard operations tempos were much higher, and that it was likely to effect recruiting because the old idea that you joined the Guard only to work flood detail was shown to be clearly wrong by the fact that so many were going to Iraq. Hence, fewer people join the Guard because it isn't what it used to be (a safe, easy way to serve, mostly locally/domestically).

Your response was:

If I recall, we sent the Guard over to Iraq during Desert Storm, so it takes complete ignorance of the Guard's recent history (not that that's out of the question) to think they'd only be on flood duty.

I interpreted this as saying, "Hey, we sent Guard units to Desert Storm, hence people who join the Guard should know they can be called up and sent overseas." I don't know any other way to interpret it, given Binky's question.

My response was to show that of the huge numbers of soldiers mobilized and sent to Kuwait in 1991, only 10% were Guard, and even then, their mobilizations were quick and easy (it was a quick and easy war). Today, while the same number of Guard soldiers are serving at any one time, in fact a larger number of Guard soldiers have been called up (there may be 50,000 there now, but that number does not include the Guard units already sent and returned - they have already been demobilized and sent home: thus more Guard are serving today than did in Desert Storm). My post argued that while the Iraqi deployments had not hurt overall Guard recruitment or readiness today, the trend lines were looking bad: units returned from Iraq had much lower retention rates for soldiers than units that had not served through Iraq. Thus, likely a problem in the future. You are right: Guard units did serve, and you did say that, but that misses the basic point Binky was making and I was responding to: the Guard is under stress because of Iraq.

As for the irrelevant swipe at Kerry's supposed vote against Humvee armor, check your facts, or at least the context. Kerry voted against a $87 billion dollar bill that contained additional Army requests for more body armor for troops that had already been sent to Iraq without it. He voted against the bill (in October of 2003) as an overall protest to the way the post-war reconstruction/insurgency was going. He did not vote against body armor (body armor amounted, according to the website, to only 1/3rd of 1 percent of the cost of the entire bill). Members of Congress do not have the power to pick and choose what part of bills they like: they can only vote "yes" or "no" for whatever is in front of them. At best, you can argue Kerry voted against continuing to fight they way we were fighting (and continue to, there hasn't been much change in strategy or tactics in a year), and you can disagree with that. You cannot, in good faith, say he voted against body armor.

Then you argue:

It's interesting that on the one hand you talk about soldiers needing money to take care of their families, but also seem to suggest we're meeting recruitment targets only because of bonuses, etc. So when Kerry offers bonuses he will be taking care of families, but when Bush does it he's propping up a failed policy? I'm usually the one criticized for ascribing motives here, but you're sure getting close to it.

I never said anything of the sort. I noted that soldiers work for money, that if we paid more money to the soldiers then fewer of them would leave the service (because the differential between military and private pay would be less), and that (because anyone who joins the military today knows they face a much higher risk of being shot at) we need to pay more frequent and higher bonuses for enlisting. That's it. I don't subscribe this to a failed Bush policy or argue that it will get better (cost less/fewer retirements) under Kerry. When the US is engaged in fighting a hot war, it becomes harder to keep people willingly in the military. That's not a partisan statement.

My overall point is that because of the fighting in Iraq the US military is significantly less well equipped and prepared to use force in other places around the world (Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, etc.), and that those other places were more of a threat to US interests and security back in March of 2003 (though maybe not today). I'm unhappy because we are engaged in a long term counter-insurgency mission in Iraq that leaves this country militarily unprepared to engage other threats for the next several years (my guess: at least five, and more likely ten).

Military personel will always be more expensive (harder to retain, more expensive to recruit) during a war if we continue to have an all-voluntee force. That seems incontrovertable. We will also be militarily weaker during this time as well, as a significant portion of our forces are engaged in Iraq. The debate is over whether it was worth it. My answer, as I have noted before, is no. Iraq was the wrong target, and it is being fought incompetently. We are reduced to hoping that no other state presents a threat that can only be solved by military force. And hope is not a good plan.

Well, on the one hand I agree with you that with a high school degree, one should not expect much money. On the other hand, 1) there are risks to soldiers that burger flippers don't face which deserve compensation and 2) national security/foreign policy are far more important than fast food, and thus should be better compensated. Even though their salary does go up (that link I provided is to a website that has more tables you can access to show how experience translates to higher salaries) it is still not always enough. I don't know if you've ever been to Fayetteville NC where Ft. Bragg and Pope AFB are located, but a drive through town will show you that military families are by no means living in the lap of luxury. Again, I am out of my league (though this time rather than baltar we might need a sociologist) but the challenges of maintaining a dual career family in the military are quite large (how do you build a career when your spouse moves all the time? you don't. you get a series of jobs, especially if you have only a high school education too). I'm not saying that all the soldiers are starving under the poverty line. There is a persistent problem of military families in precarious economic conditions among those on the low end of the pay scale. There may be sociological factors, education issues etc, but back to the original discussion, I don't think we are anywhere near "mercenary" levels of compensation that distract from patriotic motivations for service. Heck, I'll even say that the better compensation could be called a patriotic bonus for those who join instead of getting a job at the BK Lounge. Patriotism rewarded, not undermined.

In my opinion, I think we need to pay better attention to the market if we are going to maintain the U.S. military. In a competetive market for labor, we can do without McDonalds, we can't do without a strong military. Which is kind of interesting, if you look at the low income and relatively jobless communities who end up sending a lot of their kids into the military in the first place. My folks live in one, bloodlesscoup's home base is in a state that fits the profile too: no money/grades for college? no jobs (even though that new bypass brought in a McDonalds and Walmart)? well, join the military. If that is the draw, then there isn't much market competition. However even in the absence of competition, as the risks - such as death or life-altering injuries (which we aren't hearing much about in the media) vs rewards (job, a way out of Smalltown USA) start to become imbalanced, then the government is going to have to start paying attention to the labor market. As Baltar said, it is already doing this by stepping up recruitment efforts.

Hmmm ... Private Benjamin - funny on purpose ... Starhip Troopers - hysterical, but I'm not so sure if that was on purpose ...

Did you mean to write "Starhip Trooper" deliberately? I mean, that's a far more accurate title for the movie that what's on the box ("Starship Troopers"). Most of the actors/actresses fight a major war, and rarely (if ever) get their hair mussed. Remarkably funny movie.

Lack of hair mussing?! Is Steven Seagal in that movie? ;)

Plus I don't know how many lessons (about military service, life, or whatever) you want to take from a film in which the main bit of violence and pain to befall the hero at war is esentially an S&M/bondage scene that you know afficiandos of leather bars just had to love.

S&M/bondage involving Goldie Hawn?

did i miss the unrated DVD or something?

Wow. That would be something!

But no - I am talking about Casper Van Dien getting punished (at length) in Starhip Troopers. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Army National Guard to miss recruiting goal
AP AP
Friday, September 24, 2004

WASHINGTON The Army National Guard will fall short of its recruiting goal this year, in part because fewer active-duty soldiers are switching
to part-time service, the Guard's top general said Thursday. It will be the first time since 1994 that the Guard has missed its sign-up goal.
Lieutenant General H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said in an interview that the shortfall for the budget year ending Sept.
30 is likely to be about 5,000 from a goal of 56,000 recruits. The total Army Guard force is 350,000.

(thanks to Armand for forwarding this AP story)

Thankyou, Binky, it looks like you win this point.

Hmmm. I was about to concede this point, but I was watching Rumsfeld on TV this morning, a rerun from Thursday.
"We've got 295 million people in the United States of America. We need 1.4 million people to serve in the active force. We are having no trouble attracting and retaining the people we need."
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=29558&dcn=todaysnews
Perhaps it's only the Guard that's running low on recruits. I know you're going to say this comes from Rumsfeld, and say ergo we can't trust it. So go ahead and say it.

Morris,

No, both of you can be correct. There are two separate recruiting drives: the active duty military and the National Guard. As Binky's cite notes, the Guard will likley miss it's recuiting targets this year. Rumsfeld may be correct that the active duty people will make their recruiting and retention goals, but I would like to a report from the military on that. It's not that I don't trust Rumsfeld, its just that I wouldn't expect the CEO of any large corporation (and the Pentagon is bigger than almost any) to have that kind of information at his fingertips. It's fine for him to say it (and, actually, I think it's true, though I suspect they will only make the numbers because of the "stop/loss" orders that are preventing the retirements of many who would like to leave), but I'd like to see some numbers.

I'm dashing this morning, so just excerpts from the NYT:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 - Fearing a sharp decline in recruiting and troop retention, the Army is considering cutting the length of its 12-month combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, senior Army officials say.

Senior Army personnel officers, as well as top Army Reserve and National Guard officials, say the Army's ability to recruit and retain soldiers will steadily erode unless combat tours are shortened, to some length between six and nine months, roughly equivalent to the seven-month tours that are the norm in the Marine Corps.

But other Army officials responsible for combat operations and war planning have significant concerns that the Army - at its current size and as now configured - cannot meet projected requirements for Iraq and Afghanistan unless active duty and reserve troops spend 12 months on the ground in those combat zones.

...Army war planners and combat commanders do not discount General Blum's assessment of the impact of 12-month tours on morale and recruitment, even as they say that demands of the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan will require 12-month tours for now.

and this from the same piece:

Since the Vietnam War, the Army has largely deployed its forces in overseas combat situations in six-month tours of duty. The major exception has been in South Korea, where soldiers serve for one year. The 12-month deployment was introduced last year after the end of major combat operations in Iraq, when a vigorous insurgency persuaded the military that it would need to maintain large numbers of troops in the country. The Army decided then that only 12-month tours would meet its needs.

Pentagon and Army officials said a major force driving the consideration of shorter combat tours was Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who sent personal queries to the Army and Marine Corps about a month ago.

According to two Army officials and a Pentagon adviser to Mr. Rumsfeld, those memorandums - known as "snowflakes" within the Pentagon, although they land with anything but the silent gracefulness of their namesake - demanded a clear justification for why the two armed services that supply American ground forces - the Army and the Marines - have different tour lengths in Iraq.

Baltar and Binky,
I found this link this morning
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/US/Politics/army_recruiting_041001-2.html
talking about what we've said, that the Army's met its goal this year, the National Guard hasn't, the army's worried about recruiting after another year of deployments, but they're offering a lot more incentives (including up to 70,000 for college) to make up for any shortfall.

Yep. Which brings us back around to compensation and mercenary-ness. I think we're going to have to offer more to get people to enter and stay in the military. I also think it's the right thing to do, given that these men and women are willing to risk their lives for US foreign policy.

By the way, I just finished a conversation with an Iraq veteran who said he's watching the election very carefully, and if Bush wins, he is not going to re-enlist, and that he is not alone among his comrades. If this attitude is widespread, the army should be worried.

echoing binky's comment, this, and the bottom of this ("Oh, and one young man in the audience had just returned from serving his country in Iraq. Yes, he'd seen the war upfront. He knows what were doing over there first-hand. And he's voting for Kerry.").

As much as I am curious about how many of these returning (or still in the field) soldiers share this attitude, I have to admit that the comments that you and I both cite are anecdotal, and I am not sure that anyone has a good idea of what the soldiers are thinking. I think we do have a good idea (see Morris' link) about what the Army is thinking, and doing to plan for potential drop-offs.