Those who want to join the fight in Iraq, Afghanistan

AP/MSNBC:

Even as troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are serving longer and more often — three, four, even five times — roughly half of Americans in uniform have not been sent at all.

That’s partly chance, partly a matter of timing. It also illustrates the massive organization on the home front to support an army in the field.

Whatever the reason, it didn’t seem fair to Marine Sgt. Matthew Clark, who sits behind a desk in Illinois but has asked to “go to the fight” instead.

“All these other Marines are going — they’ve been a couple times,” said Clark, who’s been in the service since 1998. “It’s about time that I get out there and give someone else the opportunity to stay home.”

The 28-year-old logistics officer at Scott Air Force Base will get his chance — he recently got orders to transfer this summer to a unit going early next year to Iraq.

Clark is among some 1,000 reassigned for deployment since Marine Commandant Gen. James T. Conway issued a policy message early this year called “Every Marine into the Fight.”

“When they join our Corps, Marines expect to train, deploy and fight,” Conway said in the January message. “That’s who we are. That’s what we do.”

...

Fifty-three percent of the active-duty Air Force and 50 percent of the Navy had not been to the wars, not surprising since the fighting is overwhelmingly on the ground.

Still, 45 percent of the Marines and 37 percent of Army forces had never been deployed.

There are many reasons:

* The military is an ever-morphing body, with people coming in and going out constantly. The four branches recruited about 180,000 just last year — meaning there are always new people still in training.
* Though the two wars are the biggest Pentagon efforts, there are tens of thousands of forces in other parts of the world, from Korea to the Philippines to Africa.
* Some duty is three years — such as Marine tours in Japan — meaning a Marine might train, then serve a tour in Okinawa and not have much time left in the enlistment contract for another assignment.
* Some skills aren’t in demand in the war zone: Purchasing, personnel, maintenance, training and administration, for example.

“There are a lot of folks doing God’s work right here stateside that are invaluable to the people overseas,” said Col. Daniel Baggio, an Army spokesman. “The spirit of the Army is really that folks want to do their part ... in any way they can. ... They go where they’re told to go.”

...

There is more.

Marines are all trained to be riflemen, so all could probably serve in some capacity in the Iraq or Afghanistan. Most want that opportunity and do not want to have to explain that they were shoveling manure back home when people start telling war stories a few years from now.

The story is just another indicator that those who suggest the military is broken or that people do not want to do their part in the war zone are just wrong.