Does America need a bigger military?

The article that i read this week is "Does America need a bigger military?"
This article summarizes the problem and causes of small military in America.
The longer a soldier stays in Iraq, the more combat he or she sees, the greater the stress, the higher the psychological toll. A quarter of the U.S. soldiers and Marines enduring a second tour in Iraq showed signs of mental illness (versus 17 percent of those on their first deployment), according to the latest survey by the Army’s Mental Health Advisory Team (MHAT). A disturbingly high 10% admitted mistreating Iraqi civilians or wantonly damaging their property are soldiers who screened positive for mental-health problems. They were twice as likely to admit to abusing Iraqis.
Why is there such problem? one reason is because the soldiers are not having more time at home between deployments. The MHAT recommends that ideally soldiers should deploy for six months, then spend 18 to 36 months at home. But that is impossible. The Army is so undermanned that soldiers are going to Iraq for a year, coming home for a year and heading right back to combat. This is because the U.S. military is too small to meet current needs or expected contingencies.
In 1990, the regular Army numbered 750,000, but it’s shrunk almost 40 percent since then. Congress has recently voted to increase Army strength by 65,000, up to 547,000 troops, but that’s probably not enough. Since 9/11, the Army has been using the Reserve and National Guard to bolster its force.
However, the root of the problem is the money issue. The government does not have enough funds to support the military size that it needs. The Army is spending millions just to maintain its all-volunteer force. Specialists are paid tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses and the baseline cost of national defense that is, excluding the cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has gone up by a third since 1998 and will reach close to 50 percent by 2009.
Not only that, medical cost has been rising. Another reason why the American Army is unable to increase its numbers is that it needs money to replace equipment and buy new technology. Just repairing and replacing equipment chewed in Iraq will cost the army $13 billion.
Measured as a percentage of GDP, today America spends on its military less than half of what it spent during Vietnam (4.2 percent this year, against 8.9 percent in 1968). President Bush has not hesitated to ask for sacrifice from the soldiers he sends into combat. Now may be the time to ask for some sacrifice from the rest of America.