Good News And Difficult Days

Good news from Tommi today: Commander Gerdes, the officer in charge of the unit to which Tommi is assigned in Iraq, has officially indicated that the families of those members serving with the Minnesota National Guard RAOC 1-151 can, “for planning purposes,” expect to see their loved ones back on U.S. soil sometime in January or February 2006.

Commander Gerdes’ announcement coincides with reports today (NYTimes) that Pentagon planners will be enacting an overall reduction of National Guard and Reservist troops from a level of 35% of the boots on ground in Iraq and Afghanistan to only 30% of the total troops serving in that region of the world.

I am willing to celebrate any reduction of troops right now, even when the five percent reduction announced today is spread out over the coming two-year period of time, but the real pain of the story comes with the rest of the numbers reported:

Did you know there were 115,645 Army National Guard and Reserve troops currently mobilized to active duty? Are you comfortable with that number? Are you still comfortable with the number when you learn that there has never been, in the history of the nation, so massive a mobilization of state militia as there is right now?

84% of those men and women who enlisted as stateside citizen-soldiers are currently deployed to duty outside the country. Florida recently needed its National Guard to assist in civic security as the winds of Dennis threatened coastal communities there. Montana is trying to prepare for the upcoming fire season, but the state's troops and equipment are dodging death in Iraq: the governor's request for an earlier return of the state's Guardsmen/women was denied. “…84 percent of all reserve forces [are] activated worldwide.” The number astounds...

And makes for another problem: President Bush has assured the American public that no Guard or Reservist soldier will exceed 24 cumulative months of active duty. Do the math, and it’s easy to see that the pool of relief soldiers is running dry - this at a time when many full-time soldiers are already seeing their second and third deployments into the theater. With fewer enlistments, increasing insurgency, and no end in sight for a war against terror, the U.S. is finding itself at a crossroad of conflicting commitments coupled with a rising cost of war – a price levied in dollars as well as lives, Iraqi and American.

Good news today: Tommi is coming home by February. She and the soldiers with whom she serves have done a great job and will be leaving their base of operations in Iraq a better equipped and more secure place than it was when they arrived there. These soldiers have delivered on their promise to honor the nation they serve, but what of the nation they leave behind? How is it “better” to have taken this illusive fight to another country on the globe? What becomes of the people these soldiers leave behind to clean up the mess we’ve made with our war?

Tommi is struggling with these questions right now. The London bombings have made the days even more difficult for here to think through. I hear her confusion and pain in the writing she manages to do from Iraq. She blogs at Sentinel 47: Keeping the Gate. Encouragement from home can make a big difference. Would you have a minute or two to stop by her place and say “hi”? maybe let her know that your thoughts have turned in her direction today? I’d sure be glad if you did - those are "mom" words right there.

Good atcha and … thanks.

technorati tags: Iraq, deployment, Tommi