Paper
Report after report and study after study begins by pointing out that the American
military’s post 9/11 engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan are taxing service members and
their families like none before.
Lessons learned from draft era conflicts are of little use in understanding the full
scale of the impact of these wars at home. For example, after the Cold War, the active
duty force was reduced from 2.1 million to 1.4 million,1 thus requiring fewer service
members and families to carry war’s deadly burden and requiring longer and repeated
deployments, especially in the Army and Marine Corp. American soldiers in Vietnam
trying to survive the carnage of that killing field, and their families waiting at home,
could count down a 365 day clock, knowing that if they survived that long, they wouldn’t
have to go back. That is not the case today.