MILITARY MIGHT

Given their valiant efforts to stop the continuing insurgency in Iraq while also rebuilding the country’s schools, power plants and police force, it was highly appropriate that the American GI was chosen as Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2003. They are, as the magazine said: “the bright, sharp instrument of a blunt policy, and success or failure in a war unlike any in history ultimately rests with them.”

It is an awesome responsibility and, for some, especially Reserve and National Guard personnel who didn’t anticipate lengthy deployments far from home, it is wearing thin. While Time tended to focus on the military as a single entity, there are three major components to today’s armed forces. One is the regular service members – Army, Navy, Air Force or Marine Corps, made up of full-time soldiers. The other two components are the Reserves and National Guard, made up mostly of part-time soldiers who have full-time jobs and expected to serve only for short periods of time.

The ongoing conflicts and peace-keeping missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have changed how these three entities work together. Reserve and National Guard troops make up one-fifth of the American military personnel serving in Iraq, the largest deployment of these forces since World War II. While those who signed up with the Reserves and National Guard knew they could be sent overseas, many did not expect those deployments to last a year or more and fewer still expected to be sent away twice within 12 months, an unprecedented development.

The strains are showing both among the soldiers and the families and employers they have left behind. A school teacher and captain in charge of a civil affairs team serving with the Army Reserves in New York was relieved of his duties for questioning the fairness and legality of orders to ship out less than 12 months from returning from Afghanistan. Families from Kansas to North Carolina have banded together to lobby for the return of their soldier spouses. In West Virginia, four men in a 17-member State Police unit have been called up, leaving their commander to worry about a manpower shortage.

The current heavy reliance on National Guard and Reserve troops, who often find themselves performing duties very different from those they were trained to do, raises many issues beyond morale problems. Small companies have gone under because key employees are called away and returning soldiers find their jobs gone due to downsizing (employers are supposed to hold a reservist or guard member’s job but can eliminate positions if they downsize). They are also differences in the pay and retirement packages of active duty and Reserve and Guard personnel.

Although complaints about extended service have yet to surface in Maine, says Maj. Gen. Joseph Tinkham, “the Army needs to size itself appropriately.” In other words, the regular Army needs to be bigger, said the head of the Maine National Guard.

The size of the military is likely to be hotly debated when Congress convenes next year. Many members are pushing for an increase in the 480,000-member active-duty Army, something that is resisted by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who is trying to remake the military into a more nimble, specialized force.

It may be possible, and necessary, to do both. With a war on terrorism and, sadly, American soldiers dying almost daily, the debate in Washington is much more than academic. It is about doing what is right for the people of the year.