Ten-Hut!

I recently chatted with one such soldier, who told me that after participating in the invasion of Iraq, he remained there for a year and then returned to the United States, where he was transferred to a different unit. Only four months after he got home, his new unit deployed to Iraq. He has just returned from there again. His enlistment ends in less than a year, but he fully expects to go back to Iraq before that year is up and to serve another full year in Iraq under stop loss.

In addition to gaining extensive combat experience, this soldier finished two years of college while in the Army. He is exactly the type of soldier essential to the service's future: self-motivated, experienced and mature, the qualities the Army cultivates in junior leaders.Unfortunately, he told me that he'll leave the Army as soon as he can -- not from bitterness, but because he's weary of combat and saddened at the loss of friends.

The departure of soldiers like this is another serious threat to the Army's combat capabilities. It is the Army's junior leaders -- the squad leaders, platoon sergeants and company commanders -- who lead the close combat fights that decide battles and wars and, as I saw in Vietnam, whom the soldiers trust under fire. If this soldier's intention to leave the Army is part of a developing trend, then the military's problems could get even worse. Just such a situation developed after Vietnam, as disillusioned junior leaders left the service in droves, and years passed before the Army was able to rebuild itself.

If the Army's recruiting numbers continue to fall, the cascading effect will undermine combat capability in months, not years. But reversing this trend will be very difficult, and it seems highly unlikely over the next months or even year or two, until Iraqi security forces are in a position to take over the defense of their country from U.S. troops. But it's a mistake to solve this difficult short-term problem by adopting policies that could hurt the military for several decades.

Some small steps can be taken. The war in Iraq has placed the Army and the Marines in the cauldron of intense combat, while the Navy and the Air Force are essentially at peace. A decision to shift Navy and Air Force resources to the Army and Marines could improve the latter services' ability to attract recruits, especially if our leadership launched a national campaign calling on all Americans to join in the war on terrorism. The military's best hope is to convince America's youth and their parents that Army service is still a positive option.

A strong Army fighting force is essential not only to America's worldwide interests, but indeed to our survival as a nation and the life we enjoy today. But if the decline in our Army's strength continues, make no mistake, we could readily lose that way of life.

Author's e-mail:

don_edwards@sra.com

Don Edwards retired from the U.S. Army as a major general in 1997 after more than 37 years of service, including two tours in Vietnam. He is a vice president of the information technology company SRA International Inc.