From the front page of this week's Army Times: Bigger 'Surge' - 7000 more troops to get rush on
(Actually, that last word is obscured by the sticker they attached to the front of my delivery copy.)
And there had been evidence of this in the news over the last week as over 2000 military police were mobilized to be sent over to Iraq. On the one hand, the surge seems to be succesful so far, because these police units were sent over solely to deal with the influx of detainees acquired during these surge operations. As a counter-point, this seems to be another case of underestimating the size of the fighting force (and their combat support troops) necessary for operations in the cradle of civilzation.
Personal notes: I feel guilty, because I'm relatively safe from directly feeling the effects of these decisions for the next year or two (or three, if I really try to stretch it). But everyday I interact with young soldiers who, sooner than I in most cases, will wind up "over there" as it were. All I can do is try to train them properly and pray for their safety in the future.
Surge... wasn't that the name of a Mountain Dew knock-off?