FAMILY PRESSURES.

As happens with any deployment, "Dear John" letters have begun arriving in Iraq. Always devastating, they arrive now not only as written correspondence, but also as phone calls or e-mails. Most are generated by the uncertainty of the current deployment.

"When I read the letter, it brought tears to my eyes," says a young corporal in Iraq who has been married for about a year and asked not to be named. Army press officers provided his remarks in response to a query about morale. "She said she can't deal with the stress of being alone.

"I was looking forward to getting the job done and getting home to my wife," he says. "Now, I don't even have that."...

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who is investigating this issue, says the military now has "fewer warriors, more missions, longer deployments, frequent moves, more spouses working and more children."

Bruce Bell, a senior research psychologist with the Army Research Institute, says key factors that can drive good soldiers out of today's all-volunteer Army are frequent deployments, shorter periods at home and deployments with no known date of return. All three are at work for many of the GIs now overseas.

"I would not recommend having the soldiers out as long as we have," Bell says.

Read it all here. It isn't pretty, but it is authentic.

And reminds us once again that it is all a simple formula. Greater presence around the world requires greater numbers of soldiers which means a larger, not a smaller army.

Unless you've got nominations for the big jobs that just won't get done.