BREAKING RANKS

HEADNOTE

PART-TIME SOLDIERS ARE STARTING TO CRACK UNDER FULL-TIME PRESSURE IN IRAQ

U.S. SOLDIERS'SIMMERING CONCERNS ABOUT TRAVELING THE BOMB-POCKED roads of Iraq in unarmored vehicles broke out into the open in December.

A National Guardsman roused cheers from a crowd of Iraq-bound troops when he asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld why soldiers had to scrounge scrap metal to bolster their vehicles. The exchange was top of the news and brought a next-day response from the Pentagon, detailing ongoing efforts to improve armor. At the same time, the House Armed Services Committee released statistics showing that in Iraq and Afghanistan 75 percent of Humvees, but only 10 percent to 15 percent of transport vehicles, had armor. Beneath the media firestorm lurked another, potentially bigger, problem: the growing reliance on Guard and Army Reserve troops to drive and protect those transport vehicles and to do almost everything else required to support active-duty combat forces abroad.