Not Exactly Paintball on the Weekends

Both the National Guard and Reserves are suffering a strikingly higher share of U.S. casualties in Iraq – and are getting killed at DOUBLE the percentage they were last year.

Even though the insurgency is in it’s last throes, the AP reports:

The trend (of increasing Reserve and Guard deaths) accelerated this year. For the first nine months of 2005 reservists accounted for 36 percent of U.S. deaths, and for August and September it was 56 percent, according to Pentagon figures.

Casualties in Iraq have shifted toward citizen soldiers as their combat role has grown to historic levels. National Guard officials say their soldiers have been sent into combat in Iraq in numbers not previously seen in modern times -- far more than were sent to Vietnam, where active-duty troops did the vast majority of the fighting.

The mounting casualties among reservists in Iraq has been overshadowed by the attention focused on a rising overall U.S. death toll, now approaching 2,000. It complicates recruiting for the National Guard and Reserve, which often attract people who think of the military reservists' role as something other than front-line combat.

(Read the entire story here)

NOTE TO THE REBPUBLICANS READING THIS:

-Poor recruitment, not intelligent debate and free speech pertaining to war hurts our military.
-It hurts just as much as lack of armor, bullets and other gear for our soldiers.
-It hurts just as much as lack of war planning or exit strategies for our troops.
-It hurts just as much as the back-door draft.
-It hurts just as much as shutting down VA hospitals all over the country.
-It hurts just as much as your President never attending a single soldier's burial.

All of this despite Republicans loving the military, and Bush being a great war leader. I guess both those theories are as made up as evolution.