{"id":536,"date":"2005-01-24T21:19:42","date_gmt":"2005-01-25T03:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=536"},"modified":"2005-01-24T21:20:26","modified_gmt":"2005-01-25T03:20:26","slug":"military-may-face-reservist-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=536","title":{"rendered":"Military May Face Reservist Shortage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Associated Press paints a grim picture of the toll<\/a> the war against Islamist terror is taking on the U.S. reserve components.<\/p>\n

The strain of fighting a longer, bloodier war in Iraq than U.S. commanders originally foresaw brings forth a question that most would have dismissed only a year ago: Is the military in danger of running out of reserve troops?<\/p>\n

At first glance the answer would appear to be a clear no. There are nearly 1.2 million men and women on the reserve rolls, and only about 70,000 are now in Iraq to supplement the regulars.<\/p>\n

But a deeper look inside the Army National Guard, Army Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve suggests a grimmer picture: At the current pace and size of American troop deployments to Iraq, the availability of suitable reserve combat troops could become a problem as early as next year.<\/p>\n

The National Guard says it has about 86,000 citizen soldiers available for future deployments to Iraq, fewer than it has sent there over the past two years. And it has used up virtually all of its most readily deployable combat brigades.<\/p>\n

In an indication of the concern about a thinning of its ranks, last month the National Guard tripled the re-enlistment bonuses offered to soldiers in Iraq who can fill critical skill shortages.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the Army Reserve has about 37,500 deployable soldiers left \u00e2\u20ac\u201d about 18 percent of its total troop strength.<\/p>\n

The Marine Corps Reserve appears to be in a comparable position, because most of its 40,000 troops have been mobilized at least once already. Officials said they have no figures available on how many are available for future deployments to Iraq.<\/p>\n

Both the Army and the Marines are soliciting reservists to volunteer for duty in Iraq.<\/p>\n

“The reserves are pretty well shot” after the Pentagon makes the next troop rotation, starting this summer, said Robert Goldich, a defense analyst at the Congressional Research Service.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story goes on to further detail the deployments and their inherent strain on the Guard and Reserve. It does, however, include a positive note about how the citizen-soldiers have carried out their missions.<\/p>\n

In some respects, the use of Army and Marine reservists in Iraq has been a success story. Goldich, the defense analyst, said their performance has generally been excellent. Commanders sing their praise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hooahhh, troops, and thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Associated Press paints a grim picture of the toll the war against Islamist terror is taking on the U.S. reserve components. The strain of fighting a longer, bloodier war in Iraq than U.S. commanders originally foresaw brings forth a question that most would have dismissed only a year ago: Is the military in danger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-military","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}