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| Letter to the President Regarding Force Levels |
November 21, 2003 |
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| President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
We are concerned that our Armed Forces are over-extended and that we are relying too
heavily upon members of the Guard and Reserve in the continuing war on terrorism.
You will be making decisions over the coming months that will be reflected in your
FY05 budget request to the Congress. We believe that we must significantly increase the
number of people on active duty in the military and revise the missions given to the National
Guard and Reserve during the up-coming budget year. We encourage you to incorporate
proposals to address these challenges in your budget. Making these changes would be met with
broad, bipartisan support in the Congress.
The operational tempo required to maintain forward-deployed forces in Iraq,
Afghanistan, the Balkans, Korea, and elsewhere is unprecedented. Not since the Vietnam War
has the U.S. Army had such a large fraction of its active-duty forces deployed.
While we understand that the administration will seek to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq as
Iraqi security forces are trained, we must expect that the Iraq deployment will continue at
substantial levels for a considerable time. Moreover, the war on terrorism is not a crisis for
which the military can surge and then recover. This will be a lengthy war that will define entire
careers. We must size and structure our forces to prevail over the long haul.
We are also concerned about the mix of Active, Reserve and Guard units needed to
sustain the war on terrorism. We are asking more from our reservist citizen-soldiers than ever
before. While they have served admirably, we believe that we need to review and adjust the
missions and specialties in the reserve components so that we can protect the homeland and
prevail against terrorists without over-reliance on citizen soldiers for long periods of time.
The men and women of our Guard and Reserve can and should be called upon to assist
our country in times of crisis on a temporary basis. Many of the units currently serving in Iraq
will have served for nearly 15 months, in some cases longer, by the time their tours are finished.
When they come home, the nature of this war is such that they know the y are quite likely to be
called up again sometime in the near future.
Mr. President, every day we read stories about the potential impending loss we could
suffer to our Guard and Reserve forces if the current situation is not fixed. The Army Guard is
not going to meet its recruitment targets this year. Many of us have served, currently serve or
have family and personal friends that serve in the Guard and Reserve. All of us have
constituents who serve. Unless these burdens are reduced we may find ourselves in the midst of
a recruiting and retention crisis in the reserve components. We need to send a clear message in
the coming budget to members of the Guard and Reserve that help is on the way.
Repeated, long-term deployments will clearly take a toll on spouses and children of our
men and women in the military here at home. Military service always entails time away from
home, but we think that the active services – and particularly the Army – must find a way to
better balance the demands of ove rseas deployments with the needs of troops’ families back
home. Otherwise, we may face a mid- grade retention problem in the coming years that will be
devastating to our forces.
We are particularly concerned about the size of the active duty Army. While we will
certainly work with you and your administration, we feel that your budget should include a build
up to two more combat divisions so that we can reduce the pressure on the reserve components
and sustain the war on terrorism for the long term without losing expertise that will “hollow-out”
the Army.
The size of the current Army—and the Army budgets that pay for it—are predicated upon
an early-1990s strategy that did not foresee the tempo of today’s operations or the long-term war
on global terrorism. During the decade of the 1990s, the Army shrank from 18 divisions to 10.
The Cold War was over and the war on terrorism had not yet begun. We must now make the
decisions needed to structure our forces so that we prevail in this new war that is likely to
continue for some time. Increasing the size of the force is no panacea for meeting all of the
challenges we face, but we believe it is a critical element of any plan to address the needs of our
nation’s security.
Mr. President, our military needs help now. We ask that you show strong leadership and
take the necessary steps to increase the end strength of our Armed Forces and adjust the mix of
active and reserve component forces in the upcoming budget year.
We stand with you ready to confront any and all challenges to our great nation.
Sincerely, |
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