15 Month Tours Now A Reality For Army
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Military, War
But why just the Army?
The new Pentagon policy also means that tens of thousands of Army troops headed to Iraq and Afghanistan in coming months likely will serve tours 25 percent longer than the one-year tours the Army has had in place for the two conflicts over the past five years.Gates said the change is necessary to prevent five Army brigades from deploying to combat before they complete a desired 12-month rest period at home and to give predictability to soldiers and their families.
Marine units are still expected to have seven-month deployments followed by six-month rest periods at home.
Longer tours also will not apply to four National Guard brigade combat teams that Defense Department officials have slated to deploy to Iraq later this year or early next year, as Gates said he wants to keep to an earlier policy that would allow reserve units to mobilize for one year followed by a five-year break.
Ouch. It sucks to be in the Army right now.
No doubt this will piss off our all-volunteer forces…the key word there being “volunteer.”
Hearts and minds…
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 and is filed under Military, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 12th, 2007 at 7:43 am
We are approaching another Grim Milestone.