Slate.com: Broken Arrow - How The U.S. Army Broke In Iraq (16-month tours)

[Hissyspit]

http://www.slate.com/id/2163107?nav=tap3

Broken Arrow
How the U.S. Army broke in Iraq.
By Phillip Carter
Posted Friday, March 30, 2007, at 6:59 PM ET
The U.S. Army broke in the 1970s in the wake of the Vietnam War and the end of the draft. But if you ask officers who served during that period, few will recall the sounds of creaking planks, snapping beams, or rupturing buildings as the institution disintegrated. Instead, the crumbling occurred over time, becoming apparent only decades later.

- snip -

Of all the signs of breakage, perhaps the most acute is the decision to redeploy Army brigades to Iraq sooner and for longer tours in combat. The entire active-duty force is either deployed, set to deploy soon, or within one year of coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan. Short of conscripting millions of Americans to rapidly build a larger military, contracting out for a larger force, or mobilizing the entire reserves at once, military leaders say they have no other choice—to surge in Iraq, they must reduce the time soldiers spend at home between deployments and lengthen their combat tours from 12 to 16 or 18 months. But sending troops to Iraq after such a short time to reorganize, refit, and retrain is a recipe for disaster.

The combat-stress literature suggests there's a finite limit to the amount of time that men and women can withstand combat. British historian Richard Holmes pegged this figure at approximately 60 days of sustained combat. In Iraq, we often wondered what our finite limit was, given the stresses of our advisory mission and the frequent attacks on our compound in downtown Baqubah. You can drink only so much chai with Iraqi leaders, and hit so many improvised explosive devices, before you burn out and need to go home. The soldiers and Marines fighting high-intensity operations in Ramadi probably had a different limit than my team, as did the troops assigned to staff duty in the International Zone or on major forward-operating bases.

- snip-

Today's Army and Marine Corps is more family-oriented than other forces fielded recently by the United States. My deployment affected my family far more than me. I knew when I was safe and when I was in harm's way; families can only guess, piecing together what they get from CNN and sporadic e-mails from their loved ones. Extending soldiers' tours crushes the hopes of their families, who pin so much on a fixed return date. Soldiers have always received "Dear John" letters, but it's different now, because so many troops have spouses and children—and because today's troops are getting "Dear John" e-mails and phone calls in real time. Extending these tours creates enormous strain for military families. And shortening these families' time together between deployments all but guarantees family issues on the next rotation. Problems at home quickly become problems in Iraq or Afghanistan, forcing combat leaders to take time away from their mission to advise soldiers about family matters.

MORE

[lostnotforgotten]

1. Always Remember That AWOL Bush Just Does Not Care

If he did not care enough during Vietnam to serve honorably in the Champagne unit of the Texas Air National Guard why would he care now?