thedrifter
05-23-04, 06:13 AM
05-21-2004
Guest Column: Spit-Shining the Old Boots
By Richard Radcliffe
I did something last night that I hadn't done in a while. I spit-shined my jungle boots. They are 31 years old now and in pretty good shape. They just needed a little TLC to bring them back to wearability. Tomorrow, I will finish spit-shining my flying boots. They aren’t as old and a lot more worn. But they are still usable in a pinch.
Not that I am worried about being recalled. I have been retired now for almost 14 years and am in little danger of being assigned to do more than move paper from in to out. Besides, I would have to buy lots of new uniforms, lose a bunch of weight, etc. before I would even be allowed to move paper except under extreme circumstances.
Thankfully, we are not in that dire need of people yet. But the times are getting close. I have a friend whose son is in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) who was going to Ranger School. He is now becoming a civilian instead. What would cause a highly-motivated soldier to make such a decision?
I can’t answer that one as I get my information secondhand, but let me try to guess: overworked, underpaid and no hope. How overworked? The Army is hurting for troops so badly for Iraq that they are pulling a brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division out of South Korea and it appears they are not replacing it. But then, what would they replace it with? The California Army National Guard’s 40th Division??
Since he became Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld has steadfastly fought against the permanent increase in the size of the armed forces. Some people tell me this is his way of forcing the services to reduce their staffs to reasonable levels and to disband the “Army of Northern Virginia,” (as the Pentagon and service headquarters staffs are sometimes called). This is a laudable purpose but it appears that it will take more than a polite suggestion to accomplish the desired staff reductions.
What is more disturbing is that many of the staff officers that Rumsfeld would have return to the active combat forces are able to – and will – retire if ordered to report to the armory and draw a weapon. While the money saved from not paying a lieutenant colonel or a colonel to sit at a desk may buy two or three infantry soldiers, it won’t do it immediately. It takes time to create a soldier where none was before.
But then, don’t we have lots of Individual Ready Reservists? We have some. But one-third of them are, according to news reports, AWOL. We might be able to use them if we could find them. This is not a sterling commentary on either the responsibility of the individual or on the service that they deactivated from. I translate this to mean that one-third of the separated service people were so fed up with their active service that they decided to be come permanently unavailable for further service.
As DefenseWatch Contributing Editor Bill Sauerwein (a retired Army first sergeant) has pointed out many times at SFTT, we are grossly under-strength for the challenges that we face. The need for “boots on the ground” in Iraq was horribly under estimated as was the political situation. Yes, the Iraqis are happy to be rid of “SoDamn Insane” and his psychotic sons. But a fair number of them, with and without outside interference from Iran and Syria, don’t want us there either. However, we are there and it is vital to our national interests for lots of reasons, from the suppression of terrorism to the free flow of oil, that we stay for the foreseeable future.
But what if Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang decides to try and realize daddy’s dream of a unified and communist Korea? Just whom could we send to that party? The South Korean military is very professional and highly capable. But they still depend on the United States for the heavy firepower that we have denied them so as not to upset the hermit king. But with two of the three brigades of the “Indianheads” gone or going Iraq, we are in deep trouble.
Then there is the small problem of the Chicoms and Taiwan. Having not yet seen Taiwanese President Chen’s Inauguration Speech, the situation there is in doubt.
But the anti-independence rants coming from Beijing should make everyone aware that American forces may well be need there on short notice to respond under the Taiwan Relations Act. Again, the question is, with what?!
The U.S. Navy is down to 300 ships and shrinking. The Air Force is two-thirds the size it was in 1990 and spread from Aviano through the “stans” to Okinawa. Our aerial tanker fleet is aging and the Congress is taking up Nero’s fiddle. We have ten Army Divisions where we had 16 and all ten divisions are, according to SFTT, fully occupied or recovering from Iraq duty. All three active Marine divisions are busy in such fun places as Haiti as well as in Iraq. Nor does this litany of woes include the troops dedicated to homeland defense.
There is now no substitute for adequate numbers of forces. While an all-volunteer force is the most desirable, we need to face up to the prospect that neither retention nor recruiting will fulfill the actual requirements. This is especially true as stories like the Abu Ghraib prison fiasco surface.
Here is what I believe that we need: Another Army Corps as a minimum with two infantry divisions, one heavy and one light. To this add the supporting corps troops. The Fourth Marine Division (the Corps’ reserve unit) should be activated and the long-deactivated Fifth Marine Division should be reconstituted as the Marines’ reserve division.
We need to add a minimum of three fighter wings to the Air Force and a minimum of two additional carrier battle groups to the Navy. This will include proportionately the support troops required such as airlift, tankers, etc. And we need to start producing these units now. I know from experience that it takes two years to create a fighter wing from scratch. That is from the time the wing is ordered activated until the wing is declared combat read with its three fighter squadrons.
The longer that we wait to get this expansion going, the more we over-tax the current forces. Our reserve forces are already complaining vociferously about being misused and abused compared to their active-service compatriots. This will most likely lead to a rapid depopulation of the reserve and Guard units that form a major part of the “Total Force.”
I would much rather fight the multitude of enemies that we have in their countries and destroy their stuff than fight them in our country while they turn more airliners into cruise missiles, or worse. Unless we do something about the status of our forces quickly, I will be spit-shining boots and cleaning weapons more frequently, and preparing to use them.
Guest Contributor Richard Radcliffe retired in 1990 as an Air Force captain following a 20-year military career. He is owner of Kondor Waffenamt, a computer services business in Apple Valley, Cal. He can be reached at bigbird@kwamt.com. Send Feedback to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=492&rnd=801.6685182312485
Ellie
Guest Column: Spit-Shining the Old Boots
By Richard Radcliffe
I did something last night that I hadn't done in a while. I spit-shined my jungle boots. They are 31 years old now and in pretty good shape. They just needed a little TLC to bring them back to wearability. Tomorrow, I will finish spit-shining my flying boots. They aren’t as old and a lot more worn. But they are still usable in a pinch.
Not that I am worried about being recalled. I have been retired now for almost 14 years and am in little danger of being assigned to do more than move paper from in to out. Besides, I would have to buy lots of new uniforms, lose a bunch of weight, etc. before I would even be allowed to move paper except under extreme circumstances.
Thankfully, we are not in that dire need of people yet. But the times are getting close. I have a friend whose son is in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) who was going to Ranger School. He is now becoming a civilian instead. What would cause a highly-motivated soldier to make such a decision?
I can’t answer that one as I get my information secondhand, but let me try to guess: overworked, underpaid and no hope. How overworked? The Army is hurting for troops so badly for Iraq that they are pulling a brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division out of South Korea and it appears they are not replacing it. But then, what would they replace it with? The California Army National Guard’s 40th Division??
Since he became Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld has steadfastly fought against the permanent increase in the size of the armed forces. Some people tell me this is his way of forcing the services to reduce their staffs to reasonable levels and to disband the “Army of Northern Virginia,” (as the Pentagon and service headquarters staffs are sometimes called). This is a laudable purpose but it appears that it will take more than a polite suggestion to accomplish the desired staff reductions.
What is more disturbing is that many of the staff officers that Rumsfeld would have return to the active combat forces are able to – and will – retire if ordered to report to the armory and draw a weapon. While the money saved from not paying a lieutenant colonel or a colonel to sit at a desk may buy two or three infantry soldiers, it won’t do it immediately. It takes time to create a soldier where none was before.
But then, don’t we have lots of Individual Ready Reservists? We have some. But one-third of them are, according to news reports, AWOL. We might be able to use them if we could find them. This is not a sterling commentary on either the responsibility of the individual or on the service that they deactivated from. I translate this to mean that one-third of the separated service people were so fed up with their active service that they decided to be come permanently unavailable for further service.
As DefenseWatch Contributing Editor Bill Sauerwein (a retired Army first sergeant) has pointed out many times at SFTT, we are grossly under-strength for the challenges that we face. The need for “boots on the ground” in Iraq was horribly under estimated as was the political situation. Yes, the Iraqis are happy to be rid of “SoDamn Insane” and his psychotic sons. But a fair number of them, with and without outside interference from Iran and Syria, don’t want us there either. However, we are there and it is vital to our national interests for lots of reasons, from the suppression of terrorism to the free flow of oil, that we stay for the foreseeable future.
But what if Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang decides to try and realize daddy’s dream of a unified and communist Korea? Just whom could we send to that party? The South Korean military is very professional and highly capable. But they still depend on the United States for the heavy firepower that we have denied them so as not to upset the hermit king. But with two of the three brigades of the “Indianheads” gone or going Iraq, we are in deep trouble.
Then there is the small problem of the Chicoms and Taiwan. Having not yet seen Taiwanese President Chen’s Inauguration Speech, the situation there is in doubt.
But the anti-independence rants coming from Beijing should make everyone aware that American forces may well be need there on short notice to respond under the Taiwan Relations Act. Again, the question is, with what?!
The U.S. Navy is down to 300 ships and shrinking. The Air Force is two-thirds the size it was in 1990 and spread from Aviano through the “stans” to Okinawa. Our aerial tanker fleet is aging and the Congress is taking up Nero’s fiddle. We have ten Army Divisions where we had 16 and all ten divisions are, according to SFTT, fully occupied or recovering from Iraq duty. All three active Marine divisions are busy in such fun places as Haiti as well as in Iraq. Nor does this litany of woes include the troops dedicated to homeland defense.
There is now no substitute for adequate numbers of forces. While an all-volunteer force is the most desirable, we need to face up to the prospect that neither retention nor recruiting will fulfill the actual requirements. This is especially true as stories like the Abu Ghraib prison fiasco surface.
Here is what I believe that we need: Another Army Corps as a minimum with two infantry divisions, one heavy and one light. To this add the supporting corps troops. The Fourth Marine Division (the Corps’ reserve unit) should be activated and the long-deactivated Fifth Marine Division should be reconstituted as the Marines’ reserve division.
We need to add a minimum of three fighter wings to the Air Force and a minimum of two additional carrier battle groups to the Navy. This will include proportionately the support troops required such as airlift, tankers, etc. And we need to start producing these units now. I know from experience that it takes two years to create a fighter wing from scratch. That is from the time the wing is ordered activated until the wing is declared combat read with its three fighter squadrons.
The longer that we wait to get this expansion going, the more we over-tax the current forces. Our reserve forces are already complaining vociferously about being misused and abused compared to their active-service compatriots. This will most likely lead to a rapid depopulation of the reserve and Guard units that form a major part of the “Total Force.”
I would much rather fight the multitude of enemies that we have in their countries and destroy their stuff than fight them in our country while they turn more airliners into cruise missiles, or worse. Unless we do something about the status of our forces quickly, I will be spit-shining boots and cleaning weapons more frequently, and preparing to use them.
Guest Contributor Richard Radcliffe retired in 1990 as an Air Force captain following a 20-year military career. He is owner of Kondor Waffenamt, a computer services business in Apple Valley, Cal. He can be reached at bigbird@kwamt.com. Send Feedback to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=492&rnd=801.6685182312485
Ellie