Military stretched thin

[Joseph_Botwinick]

I didn't want to hijack the prayer forum, but there was a statement made down there that got me to thinking. LeBuick made the statement about our military in the thread where we are praying for Marines in Lebanon that they were already stretched very thin. I thought about that and did some research. The only place where I could find numbers of military personal for America were at wikipedia. They have our active duty armed forces totaled at a little over 1.4 million. We currently have somewhere between 150 - 200 thousand in Iraq and Afganistan. I am not sure how many marines are deployed to Lebanon for the evacuation, but I am sure it is not an extraordinary amount...probably a couple thousand. We have to this date, lost 2500 soldiers in war in Iraq. My calculations show that we still have roughly around 1.38 million troops currently not in a war zone. That means that we are currently using a little over 1% of our troops in a war zone. Would someone please explain to me how this constitutes our military being stretched thin?

Link

Thanks,

Joseph Botwinick

 

[TaterTot]

because Clinton cut it down so

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Tater,

How could one say we are stretched thin when we have the 2nd largest active military in the world and are only using a little over 1% of that in a war zone? Please explain.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[TaterTot]

I am not arguing with your numbers. I dont even know if they are correct, but I will asume that they are. I just remember Clinton cutting the military way down and hearing the uproar that caused.

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

Tater,

If these numbers are correct, then we are a long way from being stretched thin and what Clinton did seems irellevant to this thread.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[TaterTot]

ok. :wavey:

 

[Jim1999]

I wonder if they are referring to actual "deployable" troops, which can greatly differ to troops that are fully "combat" ready.and total troop numbers. Seems I recall some troops being required to overstay their time in Iraq and other places because of lack of readiness at home.

I know that Canada's combat ready troops are quite low and we could only send 100 soldiers to Lebanon to assist in the removal of Canadians from there. We have so many deployed around the world on peace-keeping missions.

Joseph, How many (percentage) of the US forces are kept at home for home security? I wager that is a substantial number.

God bless the troops wherever they are....often a thankless job.

Cheers,

Jim

 

[ktn4eg]

I'm not sure if this will help you or not, but as a military retiree I can testify that the biggest percentage of military personnel are serving in what's called "support functions."

These could range anywhere from supply and logisitics to vehicle maintenance, base security functions, and the like.

The nearest analogy I could use would be that of a professional racing team.

There are actually very few professional race car drivers. But, if that driver expects to be very successful, he will need a good sized crew of mechanics. These mechanics usually aren't ones that you hear about, but there are a lot more of them in, say, NASCAR or the IRL, etc., than there are professional drivers.

Moreover, while the actual race is going on, the percentage of time of that race wherein you may see the mechanics in action is not that great. However, they know what they are doing when it comes time for the proverbial "pit stop"!!

Or look at it this way: Are there more Sunday School teachers in a church than there are Pastors?

The Pastor usually gets the "spotlight," but any Pastor worth his salt will (or at least SHOULD!) tell you that's there's no way a church that's more than a hand full of people can be effective without good SS teachers (+ nursery workers, custodians, etc., etc.).

Hopefully this will help put things in perspective for you

 

[KenH]

They have our active duty armed forces totaled at a little over 1.4 million. We currently have somewhere between 150 - 200 thousand in Iraq and Afganistan. My calculations show that we still have roughly around 1.38 million troops currently not in a war zone.

1.4 million less 200,000 = 1.2 million :smilewinkgrin:

 

[El_Guero]

BECAUSE YOUR WORDS SPEAK A FALSE HOOD. ***

Tater,

How could one say we are stretched thin when we have the 2nd largest active military in the world and are only using a little over 1% of that in a war zone? Please explain.

Joseph Botwinick

*** I am trying to view your comments as an honest mistake, but you are way off on your numbers.

 

[El_Guero]

Joseph

Break out your calculator. Multiply 1% times 1,400,000. You have 14,000 . . . NOT 140,000.

Then let's study some military (logistical) history . . . Sun Tsu might be a fairly natural place to start.

This was the first text to study military strategy and logistics. From memory, this book showed that for EVERY force projection, you can only project 10% of your total forces.

We are at the projected 10% . . . And yes, AIRCRAFT AND MODERN LOGISTICS stretch the distance . . . but, they do not stretch the dollars it takes, nor does our modern technology stretch the emotional, pshychological, spiritual, and physical toll that our troops are absorbing . . . So that we have the freedom to learn a little about logistics.

 

[El_Guero]

NOW LET'S DO SOME MATH. All numbers are approximate.

NY City PD has roughly 35,000 cops + support personnel for under 9 million people. Iraq has 140,000 US troops for about 27,000,000 people. If we compare the number of people in NYC to those in Iraq we see there are 3 times as many people in Iraq. 3 times 35,000 (number of keepers of the peace in NYC) yields 105,000 personnel (roughly 35,000 less than the number of US personnel in Iraq).

So war torn Iraq has a slightly higher number of US personnel per capita than does almost peaceful NYC.

Personally, I think our guys and gals in green are working their tails off . . . and are stretched thin.

 

[ktn4eg]

ElG:

To some extent, you are correct, and I have no desire to play some sort of "your statistics vs. my statistics" game.

What I was simply pointing out was that behind every ground pounder in Iraq, there are a multitude of others (maybe near, maybe far away) that are also wearing the uniform of our country.

For one moment will I ever say that the front line troops have it easy! This is a totally different war than was WWII or Korea, and so on back through our history, because in most previous wars it was a set of uniformed armies against our uniformed military.

Vietnam was probably the first war the US fought where we also encountered the use of civilians (most likely against their will) to infiltrate our camps.

Unfortunately, most of our mass media (as it also was in Vietnam) only seems to focus on "body counts," and the "Cindy Sheehan's," and glosses over the positive things that are happening over in Iraq.

Whether or not we should have been in Iraq (or in Vietnam) in the first place is not something I wish to debate. Fact is: We're there.

Are we stretched thin? Of course we are! Was that Clinton's fault? Maybe it was, but the draw down of our military actually began with George H. W. Bush.

And let's not forget that other government body located at the other end of PA Ave called Congress! They also had/have a role to play in our force structure by their power of appropriating funds to pay for whatever it is that ANY president wants to do.

I served in our military because I wanted to: I love(d) my country and, to this day, I STILL believe that it is the duty/resonsibility for every able-bodied man to serve at least a portion of his life in uniform. In fact, it was while I was in the military that I came to know Christ as my Savior! (Yes, I know, the military didn't save me, but in my case, that's what the Lord used to get me to where I heard the Gospel.)

Others may disagree with me, and that's OK with me. We have that right to disagree with each other here because of what happened at Bunker Hill, Bull Run, Bataan, Bien Hoa, and now Baghdad.

(Exit soap box.....)

 

[Daisy]

because Clinton cut it down so

Or it could have been the Republican-controlled Senate and House.

 

[El_Guero]

Daisy

While you are re-writing history - make the Republican-controlled Senate and House a two thirds majority. QUICK!!!! FASTER! If you do it quickly enough, their vote would fire Clinton in time for a real president to get rid of Osama before 9-11!

ooooops, you were too slow.

Old man Bush started the draw down under a non Republican Congress. Clinton accelerated the draw down.

Or it could have been the Republican-controlled Senate and House.

 

[El_Guero]

KTN4EG

Good soap box though.

 

[LeBuick]

Joseph,

You may have a valid point. I was not speaking from fact from from the impact the war is having in my world. I am X military so still have friends etc... that are in. Everyone I know is either over there, on their way or just came back. So while there may not be many troops physically on the ground, with the rotation, it is impacting many, many lives.

There are also soldiers on their 3 or 4 tours over there. A person can only take so much in a combat zone.

If you could, also add the DMZ in South Korea to your numbers. That is also cnsidered a combat zone.

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

I daily pray for all in the military and those who are their family members.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[JamieinNH]

This Report (Link) states that we have 320,000 Army troops stationed in 120 countries. That doesn't even count the other Armed forces, but I would guess they are also high numbers stationed abroad.

This article also states, in so many words, that it's not the number of troops active per say, it's the fact that they have to keep the troops in more rotations than normal, and thus will cause more of the men and women to quit the military when their time is up, causing even more shortages.

They are currently using a Stop Loss rule to prevention people from leaving so quickly right now I think.

So, a combination of things, troops deployed in 120 countries and more than normal rotation making men and women leave would be a cause for troop shortages I would think...


Jamie

 

[El_Guero]

WOW

The article said that over 60% of the Army is forward deployed (outside of the continental us (oconus) ).

That is a TERRIBLE statistic. The last time that we did that was, IMHO, during WW2.