How to Get More Boots on the Ground

Dec. 21, 2006 — -- Colby Buzzell has been out of harm's way for almost two years.

Safe at home in Los Angeles, the 30-year-old former Army specialist isa long way from Mosul and the constant threat of improvised explosive devices and sniperattacks.

But Buzzell still worries about returning to the Iraqi battlefield,especially when he hears President Bush talk about increasing the sizeof the U.S. military by almost 50,000 troops.

"I've been out for a while, but I get nervous when I hear that," saysBuzzell. "Because how are they going to do that? I've seen friends wholeft the Army getting called back. They call it the inactive readyreserves."

Buzzell fears that the push to boost the size of the nation's armed forceswould involve expanded use of measures like the Inactive Ready Reserves (or Individiaul Ready Reserves) as well as extending the length ofdeployments for active-duty soldiers.

Since the president revealed his plan Tuesday, active and retiredsoldiers have been debating the effectiveness and feasibility ofexpanding the armed forces -- and pondering what it might signify for thewar on terror.

The debate, indeed the dissatisfaction with the war, has begun to resonate more powerfully in the nation's high schools. Among the most potent issues is the Pentagon's recruiting program, which requires high schools to share students' names, phone numbers and addresses with military recruiters.

Although there is no definitive national data, some school districts have seen greater numbers of students -- and their parents -- deliberately opt out of the recruiting programs. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the number of students choosing to opt out has more than doubled in the last three years.

A Long Haul: Iraq and Beyond

Some military experts and current and former soldiers feel that the president's plan implies a sustained military presence in the Middle East for between five and 10 years, if not longer.

"They've been calling this war on terror 'the long war' and in orderto do that, they have to increase the force," explained formerparatrooper and Army officer Matthew Currier Burden. "This doesn'thave much to do with Iraq. We're at war with a pretty large segment ofthe population in the Middle East -- we should activate everybody,including the National Guard."

Burden, who runs the prominent military blog Blackfive,believes that the Army will have to maintain a presence in Iraq formany years. In Germany after World War II, "things weren't stablefor three years, and we might have to stay in Iraq for a long time," he said. "I don't know if they'll lengthen deployments -- 12 monthsis really hard on a family -- but something is going to have to bepermanent to keep the peace in that region."

Burden believes the Pentagon should be able to bulk up the armedforces by raising the recruiting goals, a ceiling determined everyyear. And indeed, the armed forces met and in some cases exceededtheir goals this year.

Last week, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, told a commission that the Army "will break" without thousands of additional active-duty soldiers. "Over the last five years, the sustained strategic demand … is placing a strain on the Army's all-volunteer force," he said during a hearing on Capitol Hill, emphasizing that the reserves could be tapped to help bulk up the force. Optimistically, Schoomaker said, the Army could add 6,000 to 7,000 soldiers each year to supplement the volunteer force.

But recent experience belies that optimistic outlook. ThePentagon has had a difficult time recruiting enough soldiers sinceshortly after the beginning of the Iraq War.

To meet their needs in the field, the military has taken almost everymeans at its disposal -- raising the maximum age from 35 to 42,doubling incentive payments to enlistees, aggressively recruitinghigh school juniors and seniors and lowering standards to acceptthose with criminal records. Military officials also deployed amultibillion-dollar recruiting budget, spending nearly $13,000 persoldier.

And the Pentagon has been relying on multiple deployments andstop-loss measures in which a soldier's deployment can beindefinitely extended. Both of those practices have been shown inrecent medical studies to have an adverse impact on the mental health ofsoldiers.

Soldiers deployed more than once to Iraq have reported higher levelsof acute stress symptoms and higher levels of anxiety or depressionthan soldiers serving their first tours, according to an Army reportreleased Tuesday. And the top noncombat stressors for soldierswere length of deployment and separation from families.

"Are we concerned that soldiers on their second or third deploymentsare at increased risk for PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]? Wesure are," Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, surgeon general of the Army toldthe Army Times.

Although the Navy and Air Force met their recruiting goals and theMarine Corps and Army exceeded theirs in October and November, theArmy Reserve and Navy Reserve missed their marks. The Army and Army Reserve, meanwhile, also met respective retention goals during the same period.

One of the ways that the Pentagonincreased enlistment was through the hard sell.

When the Army missed its target in fiscal year 2005 for the firsttime since 1999, military officials added thousands of recruiters and offered enlisteesbonuses of up to $40,000 to attract would-be soldiers.

"Recruiting hasn't been easy," said Cindy Williams, the principalresearch scientist at MIT's Security Studies Program. "They added alot of recruiters, which takes people off the frontlines; theyincreased the bonuses, and they've been trading quality for quantity --the share of high school graduates is lower than it was in 2000. Butthere is a lot of resistance -- the propensity to join has droppeddramatically and parental support is way down."

But not among all parents. When military recruiting in the Dallas public schools was debated recently in the pages of the Dallas Morning News, Beth Weaver, a mother of two Marines, wrote a letter to the paper saying she was confused by "hissy fits" over the issue. "Would it really be the worst thing if your kids had enough courage, selflessness and honor to join the military, if they decided to give back instead of taking and taking?"