The sad course of the war and now the occupation of Iraq has pointed out the limitations of a small, high tech, volunteer Army. War and occupation are nothing like life in the Pentagon or across the Potomac River in the fever swamps of the federal government. War and occupation are brutal and nerve-wracking tests of individual human beings in the deliberate act of conquest, of asserting power over and control of other human beings.
The casualties of war and occupation are not only soldiers, their minds and personalities, their limbs, sight, and sustainable health. Of course the casualties on the other side are usually much, much higher: the children, wives, mothers, civilians of all walks of life pay a tremendous toll at the hands of our soldiers. Enemy combatants in a lop-sided war and occupation like that in Iraq are unlikely to survive for very long. In Iraq the death count of combatants is ten to fifty times that of Americans (and the piddling contributions from other nations).