As Iraq winds down, U.S. Army confronts a broken force
The article leads with a report on how one battalion was really combat ineffective after it returned from war due to substance abuse and discipline problems. One company seems to have accounted for the bulk, however, and the problems were solved, which indicates to me that this was a broken battalion (or company, even) rather than a broken Army.
And while some of the statistics are disturbing and should be addressed, it does not paint the picture of an Army broken as it was after Vietnam for many years. And some of the statistics, like speeding and drunk driving, are a little understandable when you consider that our troops came back from a largely dry war theater where defensive driving was going fast and there were no traffic lights and hit our streets with an expensive car bought while their pay accumulated. This is something that needs to be addressed, but is not an indicator of the Army being broken.
I am more disturbed about substance abuse, and this is undoubtedly a problem that included soldiers "self medicating" to cope with the stress of combat. Again, as long as we address this problem, it is not something that necessarily means the Army is "broken." Units may be "broken," and that is bad enough, but as we continue to field effective units to two war theaters, I don't see the Army as broken.
The Army is a tool. We used it heavily, no doubt. We strained it and stressed it (and the soldiers who make it up) with heavy deployment. We unbalanced it by focusing on counter-insurgency at the expense of conventional skills. But we needed to use that tool. Of course it was worn down in being used. But if we don't use it, why have it?
Just as important as the short-term problems that must be resolved, this Army has also gained tremendous amounts of combat experience that will make it better than it was at the beginning of 2003, once we rebalance it and give the soldiers who make it up a rest, and maintain and replace equipment used up in the now quieter Iraq theater.
Work the problem, people. Don't make it out to be worse than it is.
