Just as in Vietnam our Army is broke and broken. If we want to save our military we must leave Iraq now! Two recent news items caught my interest:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3971608.htmlFort Sam Houston behind on its utility bills Associated Press
Fort Sam Houston has received 1,300 utility service termination notices for delinquent bill payments, which officials blamed on a major budget shortfall… The post, which trains medics, faces a $26 million budget shortfall this year — a problem that officials said is symptomatic of the financial woes facing posts worldwide… To deal with the budget crunch, the post has fired 100 contract workers, frozen hiring, shut off cell phones and BlackBerry devices, turned in leased cars and stopped troops from using government credit cards.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/8957300/rep_jack_murtha/REP. JACK MURTHA : THE ANTI-WAR WARRIOR RollingStone Interview
The Army is broken. Today we're 112,000 soldiers short in critical specialties. They're paying bonuses up to $150,000 for a person to go into the service. The National Guard is meeting only eighty percent of its goal nationwide -- and to get the other twenty percent, they've lowered the standards to take those least qualified. All these things put together means an army stretched too thin. Long-term, we've got a $50 billion shortfall in equipment. I've visited three bases: Hood, Bragg, Stewart. I found shortages everyplace. Infrastructure shortages. Equipment shortages. Troops going to Iraq were C4 -- that's the lowest state of readiness. The reason is, they didn't have equipment to train on. They didn't have radios, they didn't have vehicles they needed to train on before they left. The equipment is worn out. I'm concerned for the future of the country.