The military is struggling to fill the deployment

The recruiting troubles of the army are well documented, but they are really digging deep into the IRR. 18,700 have been called back into service from the Inactive Ready Reserve.

Oh, and they're accepting 41 year old grandmas. The army has already accepted 1,100 recruits over 35 in the two months since the age limit was raised to 42.

Why? As Gen. Barry McCaffrey pointed out last night on Hardball (still no transcript,) the US is suffering about a battalion a month in deaths and wounded.

(Loose math: 2,607 killed, 19,323 wounded divided by 41 months equals 535 killed or wounded a month, a small battalion a month. Although it's got to be said that an unknown number of those wounded have returned to duty, but I don't know how many.)