Sorry, DefTech, but this is a stupid idea:

“Pentagon records show one-fifth of the Army’s active-duty troops have served multiple tours of war duty while more than 40% haven’t been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan,” reports USA Today.

So the Army is “realign[ing] its forces to prevent a small slice of soldiers who are shouldering much of the fighting from wearing out.”

The Army is moving soldiers from specialties such as artillery and air defense to high-demand roles: infantry, engineering, military police and intelligence, Special Forces, civil affairs and psychological operations, said Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle, deputy chief of staff for Army personnel.

Makes sense to me. What do you guys think? And if the Army is doing this, isn’t the next logical step to ship more — way more — Navy and Air Force types to the Sandbox, too?

No, no and no. That is: think about this for a minute. It was poorly or not-at-all “trained” soldiers that brought us the horrors of Abu G.* It makes no sense to put a gun in the hand of a signals translator and get him killed, when we’re so short of translators. It’s just stupid to think that mixed units will have the same battlefield cohesion that single force units do. And hello? Anyone want to talk about recruiting? How many kids are going to sign up for the Navy or Air Force knowing they’ll be right next to Marines on the front lines?

Yes, in a fair world, all our forces would share the burden equally. But tossing people together without respect to their skills, training and inclination and marching them out to the battlefield, one we’re not even able to properly strategize? That’s a losing idea on every level.

*Of course, real responsibility lies with Rummy, Gonzales, Bush, and the officers who let it happen. I grok that and don’t mean to let the real criminals off the hook.