Originally Posted by dragoon500ly
Its always been this way, at least since WWII, units were stripped to provide cadre for a new formed division. Korea was no better, except that units were stripped stateside to provide replacements for the Far East. In Vietnam, the one year and your out policy destroyed a division's cohesion faster than enemy action did. In Persian Gulf I, what a lot of people forget is that after the fall of the old Soviet Union, Bush I started drawing down troops to save money, a lot of brigades were deactivated and this is one of the reasons that you found 3MID units in the 1AD to name one example.
You hear a lot of talk about "training together and fighting together" but when a moment of crisis happens, it's throw whatever is available into the pot and hope for the best. Face it, the US Military as a whole has never been adequate to protect the intrests of the USA. There was a plan once to move divisions down to the Mexican border to help stem the flow of drugs and illegals crossing the border, had a good chance of working too, until Congress discovered that to seal the border completely would require the commitment of 130 divisions....and please remember, that at the height of WWII, the US only fielded 90 divisions.
The thinking behind this is that any division commander can command any mix of units...completely disregards that heavy and light units have different capabilities, different tactics and different logistical needs. But HAY! What do I know, I'm just a glorified bean counter nowdays...
I agree....if you cut 40 riflemen from your company, it just means that the remaining 80 rifleman have to work harder. And if your unit suffers losses, well then the 60 remaining riflemen have to work even harder. Its a nasty sprial that never ends. There was a lot of flak over the Marines keeping the 13-man rifle squad, vs the 7-man Army rifle squad...hmmmm, more firepower, better able to take losses and remain effective, better command and control...Marines were right.
If even half of what I'm hearing from return soldiers is true, the Army is suffering major problems with morale and discipline. Fragmenting units has been proven to be unworkable through the last three major wars (or is that a war, a police action and whateverthehell Vietnam was supposed to be?). But here we are, in the longest whateverthehell Iraq/Afghanistan are supposed to be, fragmenting units because some think-tank on the Beltway is convienced that it can work.
Please, as a favor, don't get me started on that diaster known as Tricare!
There are good reasons behind the traditions. Its corny, its silly, its outdated, but it helps the soldier belong to something greater than himself.
|