Meanwhile, our active duty forces are stretched woefully thin. Recruitment is difficult, retention worse. (So dominant is the mainline press line that even in combat zones morale stinks, major re-enlistments - as in the accompanying photograph - go essentially unreported.) And with the extension of Reserve and National Guard tours, we're shredding the lives of still more in the military business while leaving the everyday rest of us unscathed, verily untouched.
What better time than now - on the second anniversary of 9/11 - to broaden public support for this enduring war against terror while providing a deeper reservoir of partially trained men and women who could be mobilized and quickly revved up for future needs?
Given that volunteer government programs simply don't cut it, why not one year of compulsory universal service for every male and female 18 to 23, with a front-end military basic-training component? Following basic training, the service requirement could be completed by remaining in the military (if the military agreed) or by moving on into an endless list of civilian give-back jobs. Every young American would serve one year; each would spend the beginning of that year in military training - getting discipline, understanding the importance of the military, learning how to fight if fight we must.
Then, when (as now) just three of the Army's 33 active-duty combat brigades are on stand-by and available for duty wherever they might be needed, we would not have to extend the tours of active duty, Reserve and Guard units already on station and in the fight.
It's a freight train roaring at us. "Army Lacks Forces for Iraq Mission, CBO Warns," read a recent headline. From a news report: "For the first time since the Vietnam War, the Army is facing the possibility of ordering back-to-back combat tours. ... Some units that served in Afghanistan, like parts of the 82nd Airborne Division, had only a few months at home before they were sent to Iraq."
Such extensions can kill the morale of the forces we do have. With more of the $386-billion (or bigger) defense budget going to basic training for every American 18 to 23 under a compulsory universal service program, more - everyone - would share the load now unfairly carried by a diminishing few.
If the war we are in is to go on without visible end, then we need to cease niggling about how we got into it and how we can get out of it - and start figuring how we are going to staff the legions to fight it. The best way: sacrifice, and burden-sharing, by all.