The Pentagon is about to Screw-up... Big Time

The Pentagon is about to screw-up… Big Time.

Currently they are looking at the possibility of taking the cap of 24 months off the Active Duty time for which a Reservist, or Member of the National Guard, can be called up. The new proposal would allow the Pentagon to call up a Reservist, or Guardsman, for a 24 month stretch in Iraq, or wherever he, or she, is needed... and allow them to go home for an unspecified period of time, and then call them up again for another 24 months until the Army no longer needs them or their enlistment expires. At the end of their enlistment they can be frozen and not allowed to leave the service “for the duration” even though their enlistment is up.

I can think of no quicker way to disembowel the Reserves than this. No young man or young woman is going to sign up facing the possibility of constant disruptions to their families and their jobs. No employer is going to want to hire members of the Reserve, and Guard, for the same reason. Re-enlistment will be a thing of the past. Without the reserves to back the Regular forces, the Pentagon will have no choice but to reinstitute the Draft. Nobody wants that, least of all, the military. The last thing the military needs is a soldier, on the frontlines, who has not volunteered to be there.

The Pentagon needs to carefully consider the law of unintended consequences. The new proposal may give them more troops... for a while, but soon, when enlistments are up, those numbers will dwindle… and rapidly!

At some point in the future as the “War on Terror” continues to rage around the globe, the Draft is almost certain to be re-instituted. It is unavoidable. The war itself will last for many years, quite possibly a decade, or two. The public must understand the war in Afghanistan, and in Iraq, are but the opening battles of what is a global war. We can expect no help until the Euro-weenies are mugged a few more times by the Terrorists. Given the past history of Europe, even then, there is no guarantee of their involving themselves, in any form of self-sacrifice, especially a war. They are far more used to looking to us to bail them out.

I hope we have learned a lesson this time. We are on our own. We are the policemen of the world by default. We cannot disengage from the enemy. There simply is nobody else with the courage, the will, or the way, to stop them.

So, it is “once more into the breech” for the Americans.

I remain,

Your Obedient Servant,

“Longstreet”