Day 138
Yesterday I had the day watch. Came back to camp and couldn’t get motivated to go swim. It is also hard to settle down and focus enough to do a blog entry. I find that most of the days I miss are days when I have the day watch.
It’s hot this morning. Windy and hot. It feels like someone is holding a blowdryer in front of your face. Literally. Today’s wind is blowing from the direction that gives us dry weather. That makes things a bit more livable.
This article illustrates one of the lasting ramifications of Bill Clinton’s “Peace Dividend”. In the 1990’s under the Clinton administration the United States military was gutted. The logic being that with the fall of the Soviet Union we no longer needed a strong military force. Where we used to have a military big enough to handle a war on two fronts we now have a military not even capable of handling what is really a pretty minor action and it’s aftermath. We are now very dependent on our reserve forces.
I think that in the past reserve military forces were under utilized hence the prevailing notion that reservists never go overseas. However, here in the OIF OpArea reserve forces, especially Army reserves, are being overused to the point of abuse. There are MP units that have been here for almost two years. The really frustrating part is when the media and the Army make a big deal out of the fact that the 1st AD had to be here fifteen months. Many Army Reserve and National Guard units are well past the fifteen month mark and still don’t have orders home.
I think reservists should play an active role in operations like OIF. However, I do not think that reservists should be filling active duty roles simply because there are no more active duty units to send.
aloha