Posted on 04/11/2007 12:15:00 PM PDT by Froufrou
The Pentagon will lengthen tours of duty for all active-duty Army units in Iraq to 15 months from the current 12 months as the military struggles to supply enough troops for the conflict, two defense officials said Wednesday.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates planned to announce the decision Wednesday afternoon, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
It is the latest move by the Pentagon to cope with the strains of fighting two wars simultaneously and maintaining a higher troop level in Iraq as part of President Bush's revised strategy for stabilizing Baghdad.
Officials on Monday said some 13,000 National Guard troops were receiving orders alerting them to prepare for possible deployment to Iraq—meaning a second tour for several thousand of them. Officials said a final decision to deploy the four infantry combat brigades later this year will be based on conditions on the ground and named specific Guard units based in Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma and Ohio.
The Pentagon said the Guard units would serve as replacement forces in the regular troop rotation for the war, and would not be connected to the controversial military buildup that was ordered by President Bush and which officials say is starting to show some success in curbing violence in Baghdad.
Word has also emerged that Defense Department officials were considering a plan to extend by up to four months the tours of duty for as many as 15,000 U.S. troops already in Iraq as a way to maintain the buildup past the summer.
There are currently 145,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and when the buildup is completed by June, there would be more than 160,000, officials are calculating.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Thank you for that, Kaylee! This is why I support Hunter. His son has just deployed — for the third time!
I’ve been thinking on this post of yours. The thing is, we have some older troops than we’ve had before. Some Guard folks who may previously have been too old to call.
And I think that speaks directly to the state of the ranks. You certainly would know better than I, but I recall my parents talking about the sacrifices in WWII and Korea. I would park my car and walk, or ride a bike or the bus, if it would help the troops.
Obviously Clinton should not have been elected in 2000.
Yep. 7 year ago. When is the last time America was at war and did not increase the size of the military?
Yeah, it was faster in the mid-sixties as well, but then again, there was the draft. We now have a volunteer military. It takes more fortitude to be a ‘sheepdog’ than to be a sheep.
the 21-22-year-old draftee
that is false for the Vn buildup and peak......I received my “Greetings” letter a month before I turned 19......and was sworn in at age 19 and six weeks.
No. Most soldiers do not want their families back home whining over the jobs they need to accomplish. They do not want them being used by a larger cause to help erode their support.
It’s a recipe for collapse by any measurement, and it’s not a matter of ‘if,’ but a matter of ‘when.’
We are not anywhere near collapsing. That is hyperbole BS! Plain and simple. My God. We are the United States of America. We most certainly can fight a sustained war on multiple fronts!
The dirty little secret is it is AQ and their mimics WHO CAN'T!!. That is why there hasn't been another attack on our homeland in the past 5 years....During a time period in which AQ and their mimics would like nothing more then to have achieved such. Yet they haven't been able to because it is them who is under collapse as long as we here at home have the resolve to see this WOT through....
Do we need a larger service. Yes. And the Army has grown every year since 2001. The notion that we need to stop fighting the enemy now because we don't have the size military we would like to....is utterly absurd. It is mindbogglingly foolishness.
Well done.
In our divisional AO we had the highest rate of finding IEDs before they were triggered-more than 60%. In some ways I think NG units might be better for occupation duty because we have troops who are a little older and more mature than the active duty units and some of our civilian experiences can be useful in helping the occupied nation rebuild.
“Did you hear about this?”
That would mean Gregory won’t be home until Jan ‘08..sorry but that sucks.
I served with draftees - or rather, folks how joined the USAF to avoid the draft. By and large they were worthless. Didn’t want to be ‘there’ where ever there was.
Even more worthless were the Reserves that joined to avoid the draft.
Maybe I was just unlucky, and was stuck with a bunch of (fill in the blank) - but this was at a stateside base, so not even combat was an issue.
In 1975 IIRC, they gave everyone who wanted out a free pass, just to get rid of those with a bad case of ‘conscript syndrome’. Almost 60% of the unit left overnight.
Bingo. This is entirely CLinton’s fault, and we should never let them forget it.
I agree partially with your statement. I think overall that President Clinton did a poor job with not getting terrorists, but the drawdown started before he took office. Even Rummey was wanting to cut the military when he first took over as SECDEF and I believe he did to some extent. Everyone is to blame.
We'll do it. We always do. But it'll suck.
I am sad that he'll miss so much of our kids' lives.
That is why there hasn’t been another attack on our homeland in the past 5 years
And before that it was 8 years. What does that prove?
One year away from their families and risking their lives is hard enough - but extending them to 15 months is just wrong and further strains them and their families. It's a callous disregard for those men and women just because our leadership hasn't got the courage to boost the force levels and pay the price needed to conduct a war.
As some anonymous Marine wrote on a wall in Fallujah recently, "America's not at war; the Marine Corps is at war. America's at the mall".
Apparently, that goes double for our brothers and sisters in the Army
Has he or Brooke mentioned anything to you about it?
Apples and oranges. Prior to 01 we were not in an open shooting war with them. We had not killed them in the tens of thousands. We had not removed two of their most supportive regimes (Taliban and Saddam). We did not have a major military presence in the heart of the ME. We had not brought the values of self-worth and the concepts of freedom to over 50 million of their people (both of which they despise and know will end the ME as they known it and controlled it for the past thousand years).
No, there is a huge difference between pre 01 and after 01. If you can't understand that......you don't understand this war.
I would not discount a single thing you’ve said, not at all.
The active duty people that I know are perhaps the best people that I know. They are selfless and intelligent, considerate and warm and kind, and I feel they have a better concept of the value of life than the rest of us.
It may be that the higher-ups have already figured out that the draft will have to be returned. But, imagine what the outcry would be if they tried it now! They did away with it after the last unpopular war. Come to think of it, war’s been a way of life for practically all my life. What’s up with that?
It’s your fault TROLL
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