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Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the war in Iraq has severely overstretched and strained our military personnel and their families. According to many of our foremost experts, we're actually in danger of breaking our military.

Frequent and extended deployments are over-taxing our brave military men and women and their families and our support structures at home. It's reducing our ability to adequately train our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

The men and women of our military forces signed up in the belief that they were going to defend America, and preserve our way of life. Instead, they find themselves entangled in an Iraqi civil war that is not theirs to win or lose.

Their repeated and extended deployments breach the trust they have in their government. We as a Congress must do everything we can to ease the strain.

The Department of Defense itself has set a goal of 2 years at home for every year deployed, and that makes sense. It gives servicemembers time to be with their families, and re-establish the bonds that we all take for granted.

It also gives our servicemembers time to train--not just for a return to Iraq, but for other missions we may ask them to undertake.

Because of the President's misguided war and his so-called surge, the Department of Defense can no longer meet this goal.

As General Casey, Chief of Staff for the Army said last month, ``Today's Army is out of balance. We're consumed with meeting the current demands and we're unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as we would like for other contingencies; nor are we able to provide an acceptable tempo of deployments to sustain our soldiers and families for the long haul.''

What does the General mean when he says the army is ``consumed with meeting current demands?''

Over 1.4 million American troops have served in Iraq or Afghanistan; More than 420,000 troops have deployed more than once.

The Army has a total of 44 combat brigades, and all of them except one--the First Brigade of the Second Infantry Division, which is permanently based in South Korea--have served at least one tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, and the majority of these 43 brigades have done multiple tours: 17 brigades have had two tours in Iraq or Afghanistan; 13 brigades have had three tours in Iraq or Afghanistan; and 5 brigades have had four tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Army recruiting is struggling to maintain the current force structure, let alone meet its goal of increasing its overall end strength over the next 5 years.

The Army missed its recruiting goals for both May and June by a combined total of more than 1,750, and it's borrowing heavily on future commitments to meet its goals for this year.

Spending on enlistment and recruitment bonuses tripled from $328 million before the war in Iraq to over $1 billion last year.

The Commandant of the Marine Corps, James Conway, says his marines can't focus on conventional operations because training time is too scarce.

It's an impossible situation. Our military is strained--some would say already broken--and we face a crisis in recruiting.

We can't continue to sacrifice our Nation's security and the readiness of our forces while Iraq fights this civil war. This amendment will give General Conway and General Casey the time they need to make sure that our forces are ready and able to defend our country against any threat. It will also show our appreciation for the men and women who serve our country so well. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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