Salon.com News | How many have gone to war?: "Three and a half years have passed since U.S. bombs started falling in Afghanistan, and ever since then, the U.S. military has been engaged in combat overseas. What most Americans are probably unaware of, however, is just how many American soldiers have been deployed. Well over 1 million U.S. troops have fought in the wars since Sept. 11, 2001, according to Pentagon data released to Salon. As of Jan. 31, 2005, the exact figure was 1,048,884, approximately one-third the number of troops ever stationed in or around Vietnam during 15 years of that conflict.

More surprising is the number of troops who have gone to war since 9/11, come back home, and then were redeployed to the battle zone. Of all the troops ever sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, one-third have gone more than once, according to the Pentagon. In the regular Army, 63 percent of the soldiers have been to war at least one time, and almost 40 percent of those soldiers have gone back. The highest rate of first-time deployments belongs to the Marine Corps Reserve: Almost 90 percent have fought."

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The United States drafted nearly 2 million people during the Vietnam War era, according to the Selective Service System, but did not activate military reserves as the military is doing for the Iraq war. But no one in the Bush administration has uttered the "D" word for this war. Under intense pressure from Congress, the Bush administration has agreed to temporarily increase the size of the Army until 2008, but says it does not want to permanently increase ground forces because of cost. But if the government does nothing to alleviate the strain on troops, military analysts worry that Iraq might turn into another Vietnam -- but not in the way most people think of that comparison.

Instead, military experts said the tempo of the Iraq war will eventually erode the Army and the Marine Corps into a state of disrepair similar to that after Vietnam, when discipline, morale and readiness were considered by some historians to be the worst ever.

(Via Salon.)