[SJSAMPLE]

The idea the "earmarking" troops (units, really) for specific regions is NOT a questionable practice. My last unit (US Army Reserve), for example, was slated for South Korea as a specific area of operations. This did not diminish our ability to go anywhere else, it just gave the strategic, tactical and logistics planners the ability to provide some form of planning and coordination.

Representatives from my unit routinely travelled to South Korea to work with our Active Duty counterparts and plan for a contingent deploymentl. This allowed those planners access to theater operational planning that they otherwise would have missed. If needed, my unit (and I) were prepared to go anywhere. But we had the maps and layout of the region, as well as the logistical requirements, in order to deploy more quickly and efficiently.

Standing around and waiting is one thing. But developing a mobilization and deployment plan around a specific theater gave us an additional degree of focus.