Posted on 12/10/2007 7:15:09 AM PST by xzins
As security improves in Iraq, pressure is building to reverse one of the most onerous decisions Defense Secretary Robert Gates made to enable President Bush's troop buildup to go forward this year: extending the tours of active-duty soldiers from 12 months to 15 months.
The extra three months is a weighty burden, both physically and psychologically, for soldiers already stressed by multiple tours, and on families coping with strains that have mounted since the war began in 2003.
"We can't sustain that," Gen. George Casey, who was the top U.S. commander in Iraq before becoming the Army chief of staff at the Pentagon in April, said recently. "We have to come off that." He said a decision on cutting tour lengths could be announced in three months or four months.
Army leaders are pushing to shorten tour lengths back to 12 months by summer, when Bush's troop buildup is scheduled to end. But senior commanders in Baghdad appear reluctant to commit to a change until perhaps late next year, fearing that Iraqi stability still will be in doubt until that point.
The outcome depends in large part on what Bush decides to do next spring after hearing an updated assessment of Iraq from his top commander in the country, Gen. David Petraeus. At hand then will be a decision on whether to continue cutting U.S. troops levels beyond July. If no further cuts are made, it will be much harder for the Army to back away from the 15-month tours.
There are now 166,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, about 30,000 more than when Bush announced his buildup last January. By July that is supposed to have fallen back to about 135,000. Although Bush has not committed yet to going lower, Gates has expressed hope it could drop to 100,000 by next December.
At least 3,886 members of the U.S. military have died in the war since it started, although casualties have slowed.
On a visit to Iraq this past week, Gates said he was encouraged by security gains but cautious about future progress.
As a measure of Army leaders' concern about excessively long tours, the vice chief of staff, Gen. Richard Cody, told soldiers in February - two months before the decision on 15-month tours was made - that the prevailing standard of 12 months was too long. Cody said the goal was to cut it to nine months.
Among the soldiers hit hardest by the extended tours are those in certain units of the 1st Cavalry Division. They deployed to Iraq from Fort Hood, Texas, last fall with orders to return within 12 months. Then came the word in April that everyone would stay for 15 months.
The 15-month standard does not apply to Army National Guard or Army Reserve soldiers. Marines generally serve seven-month tours, although they get less time between tours than do soldiers.
Army Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, the operations chief for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former commander in Iraq, said Friday that figuring out the right time to reduce tour lengths is as much an art as a science. The math part is fairly straightforward and points to reductions by late summer, he said.
"The art that's being applied by the commanders on the ground might yield a different result," he said. "And that's what the commanders on the ground are assessing because they have to accomplish the mission."
The commanders might see a need to deviate from a straight-line approach - possibly deciding, for example, not to rigidly follow a "first in, first out" policy for rotating units home. Inevitably, commanders seek to retain as much flexibility as possible to achieve their combat goals.
Ham said the subject of 15-month tours was discussed with Bush when he visited the Pentagon Nov. 29.
Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said in an Associated Press interview Dec. 4 that he thinks 15-month tours are too long, although he said soldiers are bearing up well. His own headquarters, from III Corps based at Fort Hood, is scheduled to stay for 15 months.
Odierno said a reduction to 12 months was based on continued improvements in Iraq and might not happen until next December.
Odierno said that as a commander in the field, his calculation about how many Army brigades are needed and for what periods are not based on the policy goal of getting back to 12-month tours, even though it is a goal he supports. Instead he takes into consideration such things as the trends in security gains, the fighting capacity of the Iraqi army and the progress in Iraqi governance.
George Joulwan, a retired Army general who was the top NATO commander in Europe from 1993-97, said in an interview Friday that expecting soldiers to spend 15 months in Iraq is a major burden.
"It is tough," he said. "This is not a good position for the Army - every commander and every leader will tell you that." On the other hand, he added, it is unrealistic to expect a commander in Iraq to predict now that conditions next summer will permit a shortening of tours.
Casey, as the Army chief of staff, is responsible for maintaining the overall health and vitality of the entire Army. So he has a perspective that puts the tour length issue in a different light.
He mentioned that he has thought about the danger of allowing wartime strains to "break" the Army. That has not happened, he stressed, but he remains wary of the possibility of missing important warning signs.
"There's a thin red line out there that you don't know when you cross it until after you've crossed it," Casey said. "We are now in a position of having to sustain an all-volunteer force in a protracted confrontation for the first time since the Revolutionary War, and so we are in uncharted territory. We're measuring all of these things very carefully, but I've got to tell you, it's a dicey game."
Cody has it right. I would go with 6 months, if left up to me.
Soldiers simply need to fall in on pre-positioned equipment. There is no value in keeping them there for 15 months....even 12 months for that matter.
There's so much Iraq experience in this Army that any newbies will have instant experienced leadership to bring them up to speed.
I don't think we have the numbers to deploy with that kind of turn-around. In order to accomplish that, we'd have to drastically increase the size of our military either through recruitment or a draft.
If I have 4 people and an 8 hour night guard responsibility for a week, I can have one person be guard all night long or I can have each take a 2 hour shift. It takes no additional people.
The same with putting boots on the ground in Iraq.
Spec Ops, for example, has X number of people. They are probably on the ground in Iraq in rotations far shorter than the conventional army. They have to go back more often, but they also get time with their families more often. It is far less a burden overall.
It also increases costs a bit with extra air travel, but all other things being equal, it’s more important to maintain the morale of your force in an extended deployment than it is to worry about a slightly higher cost.
“He said a decision on cutting tour lengths could be announced in three months or four months. “
Combined with the adjustment to tour length will be a reduction of personnel in Iraq which makes complete sense.
The USAF/USN can do short tours, the Army can’t. It is logistically extremely expensive to move units in and out of there and the ground component takes a long time to get into position and functional. Moving to theater and the hand over takes several months for a heavy unit.
What is important is that tour length not exceed 12 months, which has become nearly the norm. 16 months as we did is simply to long and burns people out. Once the demand for overall manpower in Iraq begins to drop this should become near automatic anyhow.
When senior military leadership says that these wars have strained the Army to near its breaking point, that's something we have to pay attention to. Half-baked schemes won't fix it - only more troops or lessened duties. Since neither you nor I think leaving Iraq or Afghanistan is a good idea, we're pretty much stuck with a need for more troops.
Simple solution. Shorten tours, less time between tours like the Marines do.
Right now the Generals are planning worst case scenario. That is good planning. Shortening tours to 1 year would not cause any undue strain other then logistically.
Right now we are drawing down from 20 brigades to 15. Give the trajectory they are on, that will probably be down to 10 by Jan 2009.
If the forces in Iraq were to stay at 10, and that is not likely, you could have each Brigade do a year in Iraq followed by 3 years at home.
coming from someone whos been deployed. 6 months is the best timeframe.
marines dont have any issues with it, and they do just fine.
they just dont want to pay the money for logistics.
My husband has been there and is actually looking forward to the 15 month rotation. He said that there's a window where the out-going people overlap with the in-coming people to show them the ropes. You have several months where people are settling in and getting comfortable with the situation. He said that after the 9 month mark, people get comfortable and really start to shine at their jobs. At the 10-11 month mark, the new folks are coming in, "your head" gets screwed up with thoughts of going home and it's over.
With the 15 month rotation, you have a solid 6 months of everyone doing their jobs with confidence and a good routine.
Of course, he also thinks that we should go back to the way they did it during WWII when everyone went for the duration of the war, so you can take it with a grain of salt. (He's old-school.)
As the wife, I don't *like* the longer deployments and I'd *love* to see 9 month tours, but I'll support the situation no matter what they do.
after 6 month soldiers get complacent. bad things start happening. been there, done that, didnt get the t-shirt.
One M1A1 = 139,800 pounds (They generally move by ship). It costs money to move them back and fourth. It costs money to move large units and it takes a long time. Those connexes (more stuff moving by ship) have to get there and come back as do the people. Once arriving in port this tank has to move north, often via HETT, etc etc etc. When transitioning from one unit to another, you have to deal with targeting, intelligence analysis as well as collection, and many other issues that can’t simply be handed off in a matter of hours or even days. I can replace a Joe standing guard at a gate with another Joe and have them do a quick hand off between them; you can’t do that with large units that own real-estate. These units have relationships with Iraqi units, sheiks; the threat varies from location to location as does the geography. The logistical aspect alone is gargantuan. What is possible at some lower echelon is not a functional way to do business at the macro level.
And thinking about money is not wrong. However, that’s only part of the reason.
I can stand on my head for 6 months.
I fully agree with him on the above. It's the best way I can think of to force politicians to decide on clearcut objectives, going after them, meeting them, and then returning to a very clear world order. Rotation wars encourage politicians to be lazy.
However, if we're going to have a political, rotation war, we might as well make the rotations shorter rather than longer.
Someone has said that the Army is logistics intensive, and, therefore, we can't have short tours. You can fly in a replacement truck driver as easily as you can a tank driver. Every war-fighting division has its own Division Support elements.
The bottom line is that the Marines and Air Force have used six month tours and it works just fine. Like gamecock says, “stand on my head for six months.”
Which proves that 7 months work.
I was talking to my daughter last night. Her husband is in Iraq for 15 months, and she and the grandkids are in Germany, his duty station before deployment. It's no picnic.
She was telling me of her friend whose husband is on his 3rd ONE YEAR deployment and who came home on his mid-tour RR early because of his wife having a baby. That means he'll have a 13 month gap before he sees his family again.
The Marines prove it isn't necessary to have any 15 month tours....or even 12 month.
Having spent a career in the Army, I know that it's entirely driven by the "bean counters" who are intent on saving the very last dime. It doesn't matter that their dime saved costs them re-enlistments, the horror stories cost them recruits, and the wear and tear costs them troops.
They saved that stupid deployment dime.
Air Force tours are 4 to 6 months.
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