Bush proposes to cut military reserves and National Guard

By Lee Russ

Saturday, January 28, 2006 at 07:53 AM

How do you respond to what many perceive to be a crisis in military manpower?  If you're the Bush administration, you propose cutting the size of the Army Reserve to "its lowest level in three decades...."

I don't want to say that this is a strange back-door way of alleviating the recruiting shortfall, but "Under the plan to cut the Army Reserve, its authorized troop strength would drop from 205,000 to 188,000, the number of soldiers it had at the end of 2005. Because of recruiting and other problems, the Army Reserve has been unable to fill its ranks.

"Army leaders already have said they are taking a similar approach to shrinking the National Guard, which the Army is proposing to cut from its authorized level of 350,000 soldiers to 333,000, the number now on National Guard rolls."

Amazing.  We're stretched too thin now, we're threatening further military interventions, recruiting is down, and they're going to cut the reserves and the Guard.  And I still don't hear thunderous laughter rolling across the land.