Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: 82nd returning to combat

Friday, Dec. 19, 2003 | 9:48 a.m.

AT LEAST 2,000 members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, who just came home from Afghanistan in August, will be leaving for Iraq in two or three weeks. The Pentagon officials told the Associated Press that this is a 'minor' adjustment to their military rotation plans for Iraq. Evidently an Army National Guard unit, the 81st Infantry from Washington state, needs additional training before being deployed, so the 1st Brigade of the 82nd was notified. It is on the way to fill the gap.

This might be a "minor" adjustment for the Pentagon but it is probably a major adjustment for the soldiers and their families stationed at Ft. Bragg, N.C. Sudden departures for our military men and women have become a way of life for large numbers of them. The 1st Brigade spent six months in Afghanistan before returning home at the end of the summer. Never has there been a convenient war and in the world of today there are several inconvenient conflicts all going on at the same time.

Very simply, despite what we hear from the Pentagon, our military forces are stretched very thin. There is good reason to believe this shortcoming is the reason the White House and Pentagon voices are speaking very softly when North Korea and China bark. President George W. Bush actually slapped our longtime ally, Taiwan, publicly to please China.

Just last week a Los Angeles Times report pointed to the problems the military is having as it juggles the deployment of a limited number of qualified troops. Esther Schrader wrote, "The plan, which will replace virtually all of the United States' battle-hardened forces with new fighters, calls for substituting about 118,000 troops for 130,000 outgoing soldiers in Iraq alone. The large-scale rotation worries top military officials, who have choreographed the five-month process down to the smallest details.

" 'It's appropriate to be worried about it,' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged. ..."

Schrader also wrote, "But by promising troops they could go home after a defined period, the Pentagon may have boxed itself into a particularly arduous rotation schedule, some military analysts said."

Fresh troops are always welcomed by the soldiers waiting to go home. The problems that come with fresh troops can be inexperience and poor preparation. The guardsmen from Washington are so green and unprepared that seasoned troops home but a few months must now meet the challenge. This may be a bad decision for regular troops and families but it is certainly better than shoving those unprepared guardsmen into the cauldron.

Americans should be questioning the officials who continually tell us we have enough troops to "do the job." What job or jobs are they talking about? Also, it's about time that our military people begin to ask sergeants, lieutenants and captains if they believe we have enough troops to do the jobs that they must accomplish.

Why isn't the Army National Guard in Washington prepared to deploy? We invaded Iraq about nine months ago and went into Afghanistan almost two years ago. There is no good reason for any reserve or guard unit not being ready for an overseas assignment. Did somebody make the decision to deploy the Washington unit only three or four months ago? Because of the present conflict aren't all needed units brought up to the readiness needed for deployment? Why not?

Before leaving this subject allow me to mention another problem we thought had been solved because of what we had learned in past wars. Why isn't every soldier trained as a skilled combatant? In November The New York Times reporter Eric Schmitt wrote from Fort Monroe, Va.: "Unlike the Marine Corps, whose credo is that every marine is first and foremost a rifleman, the Army has too many soldiers who have lost touch with their inner warrior, said Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, the Army's top training general.

"And, he said, it is time the Army borrowed a lesson from the Marines."

Schmitt went on to write, "The issue of instilling a combat mindset in troops working behind the lines has taken on added resonance since the ambush of an Army supply convoy in Iraq in March that resulted in the deaths of 11 Americans and the capture of Pfc. Jessica D. Lynch and six other soldiers."

Do we have to have a new war every so often to again learn the lessons we should have learned in Vietnam, Korea and World War II?

We have never had a nice war but at least lessons from the past must be passed on before the next one starts."