Tour extension wreaks havoc upon Stryker soldiers’ lives

BAGHDAD — The extension to the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s Iraq deployment has sown chaos in the personal lives of many soldiers in the brigade’s cavalry squadron and imposed tremendous logistical burdens on the unit, problems that could have been avoided, soldiers say, if only the Defense Department had given them a little more warning.

The 172nd deployed to Iraq in August 2005 and the bulk of the unit was due to return to Fort Wainwright, Alaska, early this month. But the Pentagon announced July 27 that it was extending the 172nd’s deployment for up to 120 days and moving the unit to Baghdad to counter the worsening violence in the Iraqi capital.

Soldiers in 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment received word of the extension July 27 as they were preparing to depart Combat Outpost Rawah, in central Anbar province, where they had spent most of the previous 12 months. The news hit many hard.

After a year of harrowing combat missions in which eight colleagues were killed in action, and every trip outside the wire carried the risk of death or dismemberment, 4-14’s soldiers were finally letting down their mental guard.

More than 80 of the squadron’s soldiers had already returned to Alaska. Lt. Col. Mark Freitag, 4-14’s commander, has asked that all those soldiers be returned to Iraq, which requires approval from U.S. Pacific Command.

Many of those still in Iraq were within a day or two of leaving. Stryker crews had celebrated their last missions “outside the wire.” There was an end-of-semester atmosphere at COP Rawah, with soldiers playing practical jokes on each other as they prepared to head home.

Then came the news that rather than flying home into the arms of their loved ones, they would be heading into the heart of the violence in Baghdad, where more than 1,600 people died in July as sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi’ites spun out of control.

“We all volunteered, and sometimes these unexpected things happen to us,” said 1st Sgt. Roy Stoehr of 4-14’s A Troop.

“The American people pay us to fight and win the nation’s wars,” said Capt. (P) Tom Hart, 4-14’s fire support officer. “We deployed for a year, and at the end of that year they’ve asked to stay and fight some more. This is why soldiers serve in the military.”

Not everyone reacted with Hart’s equanimity. Capt. James Foster, 4-14’s chaplain, said he believes the soldiers will be physically and emotionally ready for their missions in Baghdad, but he acknowledged that some are still coming to grips with the reality that they’ll be in combat for up to another four months.

“It’s kind of like a grieving process,” he said. “A lot of shock and denial, then you kind of get angry. The wives got angry back home. The soldiers got angry. Everybody’s going through these phases. Some go through them faster than others.”

The extension might well doom the marriages of several soldiers in the squadron, according to Foster and other NCOs.

“Some [marriages] have already been strained to the max, so when you throw another straw on the camel’s back, it’s hard for the family members to accept,” Foster said. “Some [soldiers] were holding on to come home and maybe work things out, and may not take that opportunity now.”

Stoehr agreed. “I had a few guys [with troubled marriages] that sucked it up all the way to the end,” he said, but the last-minute extension appears to have been the breaking point for their wives.

The extension “is creating more problems with the families,” he said. “Sometimes the wives just don’t understand, and it’s hard.”

Almost every 4-14 soldier had made plans for the next several months that the extension has disrupted. In some cases, the extra months spent in Iraq will cost soldiers opportunities they will never be able to get back.

Sgt. Ryan Forney, who works in the 4-14 tactical operations center, was excited at the prospect of attending the birth of his first child. “My wife’s due Oct. 29,” he said. “I was hoping to be able to go back and help her with the last couple of months of her pregnancy, seeing as I’d missed the first six months.”

When his wife heard about the extension, “she was pretty angry and upset,” said Forney, who like all the squadron’s soldiers was able to take two weeks rest and recuperation leave at home during the deployment.

“She’s trying to be supportive of me,” he said, but was finding it hard because the 4-14 has not been told either what its mission will be in Baghdad, or given a firm return date inside the 120-day extension window.

“I know a lot of guys whose wives have either had babies while they’ve been deployed or just before, and they feel like when they get back after 16 months, their kids aren’t even going to recognize them,” he said.

There are also numerous financial costs involved. Many soldiers and their families had bought plane tickets in anticipation of the block leave the brigade had scheduled for September. Helping to ensure that that money wasn’t wasted is one of the tasks of an action cell Fort Wainwright has established to help 172nd families with problems related to the extension.

Because the 172nd is the first brigade to go through the Army’s three-year unit manning cycle, most of the unit’s soldiers were due to change duty stations or leave the Army upon their return. Now many are unsure of whether jobs they had lined up in either the Army or the civilian world will be waiting for them when they get home. In some cases, these soldiers had already put down-payments or security deposits on new homes in areas where they had planned to move.

Even soldiers whose next jobs the Army has promised to hold open until they return can get caught in this trap. Hart is due to assume a new position in Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va., and had put a $2,000 security deposit on an apartment near the command, with a view to moving in at the beginning of September.

Although Human Resources Command says the job will still be waiting for him when he redeploys, it makes no financial sense for him to pay rent for the next four months for an apartment he’s not living in. But his would-be landlord has refused to refund his security deposit. Army legal officials in Alaska are working on his behalf to try to get the money back.

In other cases, Forney said, soldiers’ families have already moved into new homes and now are stranded thousands of miles from Fort Wainwright with no support network in place.

There are smaller complications that will end up costing soldiers money. “We could list a million ways that people are getting screwed,” Forney said.

By the time the Pentagon ordered them to extend in Iraq, 4-14 soldiers had mailed most of their personal gear home, and given away comfort items like televisions and pillows to soldiers newly arrived in Iraq, retaining only the uniform items and toiletries they would need for their last week in Iraq. Now they have to buy replacement items out of pocket.

Forney spent $250 on books for online courses he had registered to take via Troy State University in Alabama. “I’m going to eat that,” he said.

Another frustration, he said, was the knowledge that the soldiers likely would not be returning to Wainwright until Alaska’s bitter winter has set in.

“Getting back in the middle of winter is going to be a pain for everybody. There are unique challenges to an Alaskan unit going back in the middle of winter as opposed to the summertime,” Forney said, explaining that moving house and retrieving belongings from storage would be hard when the temperature is 20 degrees below zero. Forney said.

Of course, financial benefits are available to soldiers who are extended beyond their 12-month deployment. All money earned in theater, including re-enlistment bonuses, is tax-free, and soldiers extended beyond a year can expect to receive about $1,000 a month in extra incentive pays.

But the Pentagon’s late decision to extend the 172nd’s deployment has done more than extract an emotional and financial toll on individual soldiers. It has also made the job of getting ready for whatever missions the brigade will be ordered to conduct in Baghdad much harder, said 4-14 officers.

Two days before receiving the extension order, Task Force 4-14 signed over 12 of its 62 Strykers to “other coalition forces” — a catchphrase for special operations forces — and sent four others to the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry. The 172nd is working through the theater supply system to get the first 12 replaced, but will have to continue without the four given to 1-14, Freitag said.

Three days prior to the order to extend, the squadron had turned its theater permanent equipment — that gear that a unit receives upon arriving in theater — over to 1-14, the Stryker unit originally tapped to relieve 4-14 in Rawah. That included trucks that carry the squadron’s heavy loads, engineering equipment used to construct defenses, and individual soldier items like all the M14 rifles for the unit’s squad designated marksmen.

“The line elements were left short of war-fighting equipment,” said Capt. Sean Skrmetta, executive officer for 4-14’s Headquarters and Headquarters Troop.

The squadron expects to get re-issued most of the essential items from the list before it goes into combat, Skrmetta said, “but it would have made the process less painful for us” to have had it from the start, because in the meantime 4-14 has had to borrow gear from other units.

“When you move, you definitely need all that equipment,” he said. “When you’re in steady state, you don’t need it as much. So we’ll be getting the equipment when we don’t need it as much.”

The process of getting new equipment has been complicated by the fact that the squadron had already closed out the codes it used to order gear through the logistics system, Skrmetta said. New codes are being issued to the unit, but the process can take up to 15 days, costing the squadron precious time.

“Where the squadron really got hurt was the supply side of the house,” Skrmetta said. “All that stuff we’d given out and we can’t get it back.” He cited a long list of items that 4-14 had handed over to 1-14, including protective eyeglasses, Nomex gloves, chemical lights and stationery.

Even the gear the squadron retained had been stripped and prepared for transport back to Alaska. Troops had removed the sights from all 4-14’s M240B and .50 cal machine guns. Now the soldiers have to remount the sights and re-zero the weapons.

“That’s a painful process that generally takes a long time,” Skrmetta said.

Much of the frustration within the unit is due to the fact that even though the situation in Baghdad had been deteriorating over a period of several months, senior leaders waited until the last possible moment to change their orders.

The soldiers “didn’t like the fact of getting almost one foot onto the plane and being told, ‘You have to go back,’ ” Stoehr said. “Had we known at least a month out, it would have been much better.”

“Even if we could have known a week earlier, it would have made a huge difference to us,” said Capt. James Vogelpoehl, a 4-14 battle captain.

Some officers also expressed confusion about why, if it was so important to keep the brigade in country and send it to Baghdad, no one in the chain of command could tell them what the mission there would be.

But few officers or NCOs doubt that when the time comes for 4-14 to roll outside the wire and back into combat again, their troops will be ready.

In the first few days after the extension announcement, “the guys were pretty down,” Stoehr said. “They were stunned. But by the second day, they were picking up and ready to get on with their new mission.”

My nephew is a Captain in the 4-14 Cavalry of the 172nd SBCT. As indicated in the article, this four-month extension - including redeployment from the dangerous western part of Iraq to even more dangerous Baghdad - has been very stressful on the families. But they got this assignment for one principal reason - they're the best!

Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day-by-day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils, which beset them; hold our troops in your loving hands.

Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

When I was in the Marines, they used to say.."If the troops stop bitching, THATS when you should be concerned."
These guys are professional and they will do their duty... We could call upon the Demorats to change places with them, ..think they would go for that?

Meadow Muffin

Amen,with tears.

I can never repay them for what they are doing.

They are the Heros of today. what a great sacrifice.

Pleas give to soldier's aid groups as a way to say thankyou.

God Bless America.
God destroy the Liberals who are traitors.

These men and women will do their duty but that doesn't take away from the fact that this should not have happened to them on such short notice. At the Senate Armed Services hearing the other day I believe it was Gen Pace who said the decision was made after days of consultation among all the high level players involved. The chain of command knew the disruptions it would cause. It just points out how stretched the military is.

I've said it before but the dems are licking their chops over this for November.

"These men and women will do their duty but that doesn't take away from the fact that this should not have happened to them on such short notice."

Huh?

If not them, who? This war is going to get much tougher. I don't know your background, leadpenny and if you, your friends, acquaintances and US Military think the Democrats can fight a better war, win or at the very least survive, then by all means vote for the Murtha's, Kerries and Deans of the world.

I'm a civilian, borne of European parents who 1) survived the Allied carpet bombing in Berlin (and this Iraqi war is NOTHING absolutely NOTHING compared to what these Soldiers' grandfathers went through!) and the other who survived the German Occupation, was part of the Dutch Underground and witnessed the abysmal failure of Market Garden.

So, why are you such a downer? This country and our Military have survived worse. Granted, it was a big disappointment NOT being redeployed on a timely basis, but they are Soldiers and they volunteered. In other words, suck it up! This war is going to get much worse. If you and your friends can’t handle this non-redeployment then I suggest you wave your white flags and go French. This really isn’t meant to be a flame, but I cannot stand whining of any kind. I prefer Winston Churchill who Never Gave In, under ALL circumstances.

If you are suggesting a bigger Military, then voting Democrat is NOT the solution.

“We all volunteered, and sometimes these unexpected things happen to us,” said 1st Sgt. Roy Stoehr of 4-14’s A Troop.

“The American people pay us to fight and win the nation’s wars,” said Capt. (P) Tom Hart, 4-14’s fire support officer. “We deployed for a year, and at the end of that year they’ve asked to stay and fight some more. This is why soldiers serve in the military.”

Your nephew and Soldiers like your nephew are awesome. Please thank him for me and a big thank you to you and all your family for being such a great support not only to one another but to this country.

You have no idea how many millions of people Soldiers like your nephew have helped over the past two plus centuries. There is a special place in heaven for the American Soldier.

I served 21 years in the Army. Two tours in Vietnam and two and a half years in Munich in the early 60s. I have a son who is leaving for Iraq on Monday. You obviously have no clue what this does to morale and how it will effect recruiting. It's crisis management at the highest level of DOD. We won WWII with over 10,000,000 draftees. Soldiers and their loved ones will begin to ask why just them and why three and four and more tours. Israel is fighting for their survival with conscripts and so should we be. We should have asked ALL of America to participate in the WOT and there should have been a Universal Service Bill on the Presidents Desk before 15 Sep 01.

I appreciate your tough talk. Where'd you serve?

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