Is The Army Stretched Too Thin?

What really worries Rumsfeld is not Congress but the spouses, members of Army families who have had about all they can take of Dad (or, increasingly, Mom) being away six, nine and 12 months a year. Unlike the Army of 1973, which largely comprised single draftees, the Army today is married with children and all-volunteer. The long deployments are stressing marriages and families to the breaking point, and most active-duty personnel have skills valued in the civilian world, as the recruiting posters promise. Holly Petraeus, wife of Major General David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne, told Senate lawmakers that her husband had been away from home for 16 of the past 24 months. "In recent years the Army has downsized while adding on more and more overseas missions," she said. "Families will not be willing to go it alone forever, with little relief in sight." After two months of complaining, the Germany-based wives of Black Hawk pilots got the Army to agree to limit their husbands' stays in Iraq to a year after being told they might have to stay for 16 months. Says Andrew Krepinevich, who heads the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent Washington think tank: "The Army is either going to have to change the deployment environment or run the risk of having people vote with their feet."

That, of course, would only make the problem worse. In February, General Eric Shinseki, who was then Army Chief of Staff, set off fireworks when he said the U.S. might have to dedicate "several hundred thousand soldiers" to postwar duty in Iraq, a remark that looks prescient today. Before he left the service in June, Shinseki issued a warning to his colleagues who stayed behind. It was aimed as much at the security of the nation as the security of the troops and their families. "Beware," he warned, "the 12-division strategy for a 10-division Army." No one listened to Shinseki when he wore four stars. Now that he is retired, he is finally being heard.