Not Home for the Holidays

Even in peacetime, the holidays are tough for military men and women overseas. Without families present, the carols sound tinny. The turkey tastes like cardboard. In wartime it’s worse, especially when one is facing dangers like Tuesday’s explosion at a U.S. base in the Iraqi city of Mosul that killed 14 soldiers.

Particularly for the National Guard and Reserve members, this year hasn’t been what they expected when they signed up.

The U.S. death toll in Iraq passed 1,300 this week. More than 140 were members of National Guard units, more accustomed to helping communities recover from fires, floods, earthquakes and riots than dodging rocket-propelled grenades.

Nine of those killed were from the California National Guard, nearly middle-aged men like Michael W. Vega of Lathrop, 41, promoted to 1st lieutenant while on his last days of life support at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in March, and youths like Spc. Daniel P. Unger, 19, of Exeter, fatally wounded during a rocket attack in May.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the active-duty military thin, forcing the Pentagon to shift reservists from once-a-month-plus-two-weeks-in-the-summer drilling routines to a year or more on duty, including combat. The National Guard has been heavily mobilized as well. Since the 9/11 attacks, about three-quarters of California’s Army National Guard troops have been deployed at one time or another to guard the Golden Gate Bridge, hunt the Taliban in Afghanistan, deliver supplies in Iraq.

The deployments disrupt the balance and finances of families at home and leave employers in the lurch. State National Guard officials say they could cope with any emergencies in California by calling in Guard personnel from other states if need be. They envision deploying one-quarter of the force, readying another quarter to head out and keeping the remainder in the state. But with more than 6,000 of the 15,700 California Guard soldiers now deployed overseas, the bulk of them in Iraq and others getting ready to replace them next year or serve in Kosovo, the Sinai or Guantanamo Bay, the backup forces risk being as badly stretched as the full-time force.

One solution to the problem -- long overdue -- is to increase the active-duty Army by several divisions, 20,000 to 40,000 more men and women, over its current 1.4 million. Another is to move some troops now in unit headquarters around the world, or on training and support staffs, to combat units. Nearly 1 million troops from all branches of the military have served in Afghanistan or Iraq; an estimated one-third have done two tours of duty.

It takes time to train soldiers and money to pay them, but recent statements from President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld show why more troops are needed, even though the two men have yet to admit it. A gutsy Tennessee Army National Guard soldier asked Rumsfeld in Kuwait two weeks ago why his squad had to search garbage piles to find makeshift armor for its vehicles. Rumsfeld replied, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

The army the Bush administration went to war with last year performed superbly in the few weeks needed to oust Saddam Hussein’s government. But the nearly 18 months of occupation has been disastrous. Insurgents have grown in number and skill, killing Iraqis in bunches and planting explosives in roads to demolish U.S. trucks and kill soldiers on patrol.

During this year’s presidential election campaign, Bush presented a sunny picture of progress in Iraq. On Monday, at a Washington news conference, he soberly acknowledged the effects on morale of insurgent attacks and mentioned the obvious problems in training Iraqi security forces, some of which have fled rather than fight. Fewer than half the 274,000 Iraqi police and soldiers considered necessary to protect the country have been trained, and Bush said elections next month were “just the beginning of the process.” Rumsfeld said two weeks ago he expected and hoped U.S. troops would withdraw from Iraq in four years, depending on how well Iraqi security forces do. The effect of this new math is not lost on weary Guard and Reserve forces, some of which already have been deployed twice to Iraq.

The increased danger has made Guard and Reserve recruitment more difficult and costly. Last week the Guard said it would increase bonuses from $5,000 to $15,000 for members who signed up for another six years. The longer the war goes on, with more deployments to combat zones, the more difficult it will be to persuade men and women to enlist or sign up again.

The soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in today’s all-volunteer military have reported for duty when called; morale has been generally high despite the lack of armor and other equipment. But with four more years of war and occupation in prospect, only a substantial increase in the active-duty military will relieve the burden on those already in uniform full time and those called up on short notice and kept away from home for lengthy tours.