Amen with this, oversoul. I've experienced similar levels of physical and mental exhaustion a couple of times (civilian here, my most memorable 'the hell is happening to me' was after days without sleeping and working on my PhD thesis, at which point I was becoming aware of my brain's unability to focus even as I tried to push through). Without rest, the alternative is hard drugs as it was done during World War II for soldiers, some of whom being given early versions of meth to remain active in combat situation after too much time without rest.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that this isn't a sustainable doctrine for management of the forces. As for the waste in resources, you'd have to rework entirely the incestuous relation between the Pentagon, the MIC and the Congress, which is pretty infamous all over the globe for the revolving door policies between all three. These lead to absurd amounts of waste and program mismanagement. Of course, I really don't see any change happening there without a massive military/political disaster caused by it.
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