Catch-22 Revisited: "'The nature of reserve [army] service as a purely one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer, training group of soldiers that never gets mobilized over a 20-30 year period is over,' says Lt Gen James Helmly, its commander. 'That is not the world we live in.' The army reserve, he adds, should be seen as a good business deal: 'The cost for 100 active duty soldiers to maintain readiness for a year is approximately seven times greater than that of 100 army reserve soldiers.'
Cheap they may be. But this motley collection of part-timers have now sparked the worst US military scandal since Vietnam. It is they who are accused of being the true face of the force which President Bush claims is bringing freedom to Iraq. "
- posted by geoff @ #