The Nattering Nabob

Here's a cost of the war that didn't even occur to me: with the National guard over there, what do we do if we need them HERE?

"With tens of thousands of their citizen soldiers now deployed in Iraq, many of the nation's governors complained on Sunday to senior Pentagon officials that they were facing severe manpower shortages in guarding prisoners, fighting wildfires, preparing for hurricanes and floods and policing the streets.

Much of the concern has focused on wildfires, which have started to destroy vast sections of forests in several Western states...."We're praying a lot that a major fire does not break out," Ted Kulongoski, the governor of Oregon said. "It has been dry out here, the snow pack's gone because of an extremely warm May and June and the fire season came earlier."

He added, "You're just going to have fires and if you do not have the personnel to put them out, they can grow very quickly into ultimately catastrophic fires."