Fast forward 30 or 35 years, to the present. Ironically, now it's not the Pentagon but the media and the public who try to keep score in Gulf War II by the numbers. You'd think we ought to know better, but America's memory is short. In a fashion that's one of our national strengths, since we're always looking ahead -- gazing toward the future instead of dwelling in the past. We're also a deeply peace-loving country, so it's natural that folks in the U.S. at large feel a healthy abhorrence to war. But a weakness that can cost us is we like to use one number as much as we can, as a shorthand for complexities in so many parts of our lives. We get mesmerized when that number starts to gyrate on the timeline in our real three-dimensional world, and too easily we end up on an emotional roller-coaster ride.

Let's try to restore a sense of proportion on the numerology of combat. Gulf War I and Gulf War II are completely different ball games. The analogy to baseball -- America's favorite pastime -- is more than just a turn of phrase. To baseball fans, studying player statistics can be as much fun as watching a game. But does looking at stats capture much (or any) of the suspense and passion that happens on the field? Can numbers convey the heart-stopping feel of unpredictable close plays in what's called with so much truth a "game of inches?" And can tabulations of data show what a moment-by-moment see-saw each hard-fought pennant race really is, or reproduce for spectators the drive and sheer grit of competing players, or immerse people in the ulcer-inducing pressures besetting the manager of each team? I think not, and to the degree that war is the ultimate contest of strategy and athletics, there's meaning for all of us in an very old baseball axiom: Fundamentals matter most.

Gulf War I involved about half a million Allied troops in-theater. The build-up to the actual fighting was such a planning and logistics challenge that it took a whole six months. The process was so drawn-out that the military gave it a name of its own, Operation Desert Shield. Next came the intensive air campaign, which opened Desert Storm and took five weeks. Only then did land forces move to the kill, in a 100-hour "victory."

I put that word victory in quotes on purpose (and I don't mean to denigrate what was accomplished.) But in Gulf War I -- that is, in Desert Shield plus Desert Storm combined -- we merely evicted Saddam's troops from Kuwait. With all due respect to Kuwait, it's smaller than New Jersey. Iraq, in contrast, is 25 times as large -- the size of California.

Now the question being asked repeatedly is, Did we go in prematurely this time, using not enough troops? The answer to that, quite frankly, depends. In war there's rarely much that isn't subjective or intentionally spun, especially while the battle is still going on. Do you want to fly-speck and second-guess the warfighting professionals, or do you prefer to gain an objective and unemotional point of view?

Sure, we could have waited, and deployed a bigger force -- I'm speaking here only logistically, U.N. politics aside. But what would that have gotten us, really? Greater expense, more stress and tension, and more time for Saddam to organize his satanic bag of dirty tricks. By going in sooner, with a lighter force, we achieve a kind of spoiling attack, and carried out a very effective reconnaissance by fire. These are both classic battlefield tactics, intended to save time and blood. By doing what we did the way we did it, we flushed Saddam's death squads the same way hunters flush their prey. Now that we've seen how he fights Gulf War II, we know Saddam's latest methods and his weaknesses, we've identified his pockets of major resistance, and we know exactly what to do with our next influx of troops. (I've got some educated guesses on what our follow-on tactics might be, but for security's sake I'll keep mum and leave Saddam hanging.)

Look, we also took a calculated risk, like at Midway. We might have made it straight to Baghdad with the first throw of the dice. That we didn't should not detract from what we have achieved. The casualties we've suffered (and inflicted) were awful but necessary, because war at best is dynamic chaos. Constant learning and resilient adaptation are absolute musts. You always want a strong reserve, to make up for early errors and blind spots in plans. A close look at every war our nation ever was involved in will show that neither side gets everything perfectly right.

Remember Saddam's utter, staggering blunder in Gulf War I? Completely ignoring his own right flank, as the beautiful set-up for General Schwartzkopf's famous Hail Mary play? What blunders will Saddam make in Gulf War II?

If you do like using numbers to keep score in this newest conflict, here's a number as shorthand that should say all there is to say about "Why we fight." At last count Saddam and his two sons, and their loyal band of mass murderers, committed seven different types of war crimes in barely as many days. Seven. Does the execution of Iraqi soldiers and civilians who waver remind you at all of the Nazis' SS and Gestapo toward the end, as Hitler ranted in his fuehrerbunker hiding from Allied air power? Does the increasing use of homicide bombers by this evil Saddamist Dynasty make you think at all of the kamikazes resorted to by a doomed and desperate Imperial Japan? What does that really say about whose cause is just, Saddam's or ours? And what does it say about which side will win Operation Iraqi Freedom?

There's one statistic that matters most, the count of collateral damage. The very fact we think this way demonstrates America's greatness as a society based on high morals. Be thankful that our armed forces are fully equipped with the "Three Ts of war" which it takes to keep that count well down: training, tactics, and technology. And don't fall for Saddam's premeditated "schlock and pshaw" psychological warfare either! Talking of numbers, two -- count 'em, two -- American munitions just happen to allegedly go astray in downtown Baghdad, and both by some weird statistics-defying coincidence happen to land in crowded markets in poor Shiite neighborhoods miles apart? Come on, Saddam, what dirty tricks are you pulling now? Planting bombs in marketplaces? As a former actuary myself, something here doesn't add up. Think about the fundamentals.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com