Nbadan
11-19-2004, 04:43 PM
Continued fighting in Iraq is straining U.S. forces nearly to the breaking point, even as the Pentagon pumps more than $5.8 billion per month into sustaining its forces there, the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines told Congress on Wednesday.
In testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, the service chiefs said the military would need considerably more money for Iraq over the next year. The chiefs of the Army and Marines in particular stressed the increasing difficulty of recruiting and retaining soldiers, and then equipping them for combat.
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In the last year, as the insurgency in Iraq has grown, "the demand on the force has increased exponentially," Hagee said. "This demand is especially telling in the strain on our Marines, their families, and on our equipment and materiel stocks."
For the Army, which has 110,000 soldiers serving in Iraq — five times as many troops as the Marine Corps — the strain is particularly acute, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said. Despite racing over the last year to install heavy armor on its fleet of more than 8,000 Humvees in Iraq, it has so far manufactured the armor for only half, he said. And not all of that has been installed on the vehicles.
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Though equipment costs have been significant, the service chiefs testified, so has the impact on personnel. Recruiters have been forced to offer large signing bonuses to attract new recruits, while the National Guard and Reserve are struggling to retain people.
LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-troops18nov18,0,6045845,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines)
I think they will try to exchange National Service for college, payable of course when you get back, which will confuse everybody and make them think it's Kerry's plan. Then they'll call up the people who have Pell Grants or have recently graduated through Pell Grants, and everybody will say; that's fair and it's what Kerry wanted. Never mind reality, that went away a very long time ago.
In testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, the service chiefs said the military would need considerably more money for Iraq over the next year. The chiefs of the Army and Marines in particular stressed the increasing difficulty of recruiting and retaining soldiers, and then equipping them for combat.
<snip>
In the last year, as the insurgency in Iraq has grown, "the demand on the force has increased exponentially," Hagee said. "This demand is especially telling in the strain on our Marines, their families, and on our equipment and materiel stocks."
For the Army, which has 110,000 soldiers serving in Iraq — five times as many troops as the Marine Corps — the strain is particularly acute, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said. Despite racing over the last year to install heavy armor on its fleet of more than 8,000 Humvees in Iraq, it has so far manufactured the armor for only half, he said. And not all of that has been installed on the vehicles.
<snip>
Though equipment costs have been significant, the service chiefs testified, so has the impact on personnel. Recruiters have been forced to offer large signing bonuses to attract new recruits, while the National Guard and Reserve are struggling to retain people.
LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-troops18nov18,0,6045845,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines)
I think they will try to exchange National Service for college, payable of course when you get back, which will confuse everybody and make them think it's Kerry's plan. Then they'll call up the people who have Pell Grants or have recently graduated through Pell Grants, and everybody will say; that's fair and it's what Kerry wanted. Never mind reality, that went away a very long time ago.