"need more grunt battalions. In Iraq we are using people untrained in Infantry type stuff to make up for the lack grunts".
1. Yes, active divisions were cut TOO far; with that, goes the active MP Battalions, etc.
2. Which means, more reliance on the reserves. That is for a purpose, to involve the American people in any extended deployment.
3. The Reserves as well as the active forces are too extended.
4. The Reserves, with adequate training and priority for equipment, can be good; but those without prior active duty experience (which, of course, many many reservists DO have) cannot be expected to bear the same burden equally on an extended basis as full-time professional forces.
a. Witness the reservist MP general and debacle the ENTIRE Army has been smeared with . . .
b. Witness the maintenance company decimated at the time Jessica Lynch was captured. Logistics units in the active force do not have the same priority for modernized equipment as the "grunt" units. AND reserve logistics units are at the bottom of the heap. Those trucks did not even have radios! Not even WW II level RADIOS! Same when I was on active duty in the 80s (hopefully better now) when I as co. cdr and the Recovery section had the only 2 radios in the entire heavy maintenance company! So if the convoy gets separated, and they have NO RADIO to reorient? Is it any surprise that they keep being lost and get ambushed and, with no armor and no heavy weapons, get decimated? And how can they do their mission with so many key individuals with extensive maintenance experience wiped out? And why don't the grunts care about rear security for the thin-skinned troops who support them -- even pulling their control point before the unfortunate "lost" convoy got there?
POINT: We need BALANCED forces. More $$ for grunts, without upgrading the active and reserve support forces, will end up with more horror stories, as above.
YES: more grunts. BUT not ONLY more grunts.
I have a problem with that statement. The moment our troops are involved in combat, the American People are involved.
The Army was cut back under the 'toons to the point where many support activities did not exist outside of the Reserves or the Guard. If my experience, in the Mass Guards, short after Viet Nam, I did a couple of tours, the training sucks, the discipline sucks, it is a club.
We need at least a Corps equivalent and a hard look at our Reserve system.
Well the problem with just "adding" 20K or 30K to the end strength of the Army ignores how you are going to use these people. You must designate a warfighting force structure to which these people will be assigned. You must decide if they are to be Infantry battalions, supply companies, engineer battalions, or a mess kit repair company - this also requires equipment (trucks, guns, radios, etc.) and physical space (billets, supply rooms, motor pools, family housing) for these forces. The Army always has a priority list for more units to meet the warfighting strategy, but I'm not sure that that is what the Congress is doing. I think the Congress is just throwing an extra 30K bodies that the Army without the accompanying force structure, pay, operations and maintenance and construction dollars. If that is the case, then the Congress is just STUPID.