I'm thoroughly confused

Dear editor:

I’m confused. Someone needs to explain the new troop strategy to me.

We have heard consistently from military leaders that our troop strength and their constant equipment use is stretching our volunteer army and marine crops to a dangerous level. It has also been in the papers that mid-level command positions in both the officer corps and senior enlisted are seeing a loss of experienced manpower. This is in spite of the financial awards being offered for reenlistments.

In the face of this problem, the president announced that he is halting the reduction of forces in Iraq and that our force level will hold at roughly 140,000 troops, which is actually an increase of 10,000 when compared to the pre-surge force announced a year ago. On top of that, he has politically announced that service in Iraq will be limited to 12 months as opposed to the present 15 and 18 month rotations and troops will stay at home for a minimum of 12 months before redeployment.

All of that sounds wonderful for our service people, but how do you maintain a stretched force of 140,000 with those new limitations on deployment rotations? It seems one and one does not equal two.