Responding to the Dems' armor shortage meme
Michelle Malkin

Whenever leftists need to show they really, really do care more about the troops than their political opponents, they pull out the armor card. Hillary Clinton did it a year ago. A Rumsfeld-bashing reporter bragged about coaching a soldier into spotlighting the armor gap two years ago. (See below for links to blog posts on the subject published over the last three years.)

Now, following a Feb. 11 WaPo story, "Thousands of Army Humvees Lack Armor Upgrade," the armor shortage is again a rallying cry of the Left as it prepares to defund the war. The New York Times editorial board has a born-again interest in the matter. Democrat strategist Julie Roginsky also repeated the meme on tonight's O'Reilly Factor. And, natch, Ted Kennedy is on the bandwagon.

For the record, here is the Army's full response: ...

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Re: The Home Front -- and the Mythical Overstretch 
Mario Loyola

The Murtha plan is an attempt to codify a Rumsfeld target of two years at home for every year deployed in combat — considered a necessary part of recruiting & retention in the out-years.  From this target has arisen a myth that there is some military necessity for the 2-to-1 ratio.  This is false.  A few myths need to be untangled here. 

One Democratic staff committee report recently stated:

Army doctrine calls for 2 units to be held in reserve (for rest and training) for every unit deployed.  As of today, the Army has only one unit in reserve for every unit deployed—a ratio history shows cannot be sustained for any length of time without serious adverse consequences to the force.

History cannot show that a 1-to-1 ratio is unsustainable, because the current system of a fully modular and rotational "total force" that is only partially at war is entirely new. And in fact, there is nothing necessarily bad about a 1-to-1 ratio, because what it means is that half the force at any given time is not mobilized for deployment. 

It is often said that a unit needs one year back home for training for every year it spends abroad.  This is false. What Army doctrine calls for in terms of training as a unit is a period of several weeks meant to integrate new recruits (who have already undergone basic training) and get the whole unit used to working together.  The rest of the "rest and training" period is best understood as peacetime activity.

Another common myth is that because many units are reporting at low levels of readiness, they are not fully combat capable.  This ignores two things.  ...