Pentagon abandons active-duty time limit

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The
Pentagon has abandoned its limit on the time a citizen-soldier can be required to serve on active duty, officials said Thursday, a major change that reflects an Army stretched thin by longer-than-expected combat in
Iraq.

The day after
President Bush announced his plan for a deeper U.S. military commitment in Iraq, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters the change in reserve policy would have been made anyway because active-duty troops already were getting too little time between their combat tours.

The Pentagon also announced it is proposing to Congress that the size of the Army be increased by 65,000, to 547,000 and that the Marine Corps, the smallest of the services, grow by 27,000, to 202,000, over the next five years. No cost estimate was provided, but officials said it would be at least several billion dollars.

Until now, the Pentagon's policy on the Guard or Reserve was that members' cumulative time on active duty for the Iraq or Afghan wars could not exceed 24 months. That cumulative limit is now lifted; the remaining limit is on the length of any single mobilization, which may not exceed 24 consecutive months, Pace said.

In other words, a citizen-soldier could be mobilized for a 24-month stretch in Iraq or
Afghanistan, then demobilized and allowed to return to civilian life, only to be mobilized a second time for as much as an additional 24 months. In practice, Pace said, the Pentagon intends to limit all future mobilizations to 12 months.

Members of the Guard combat brigades that have served in Iraq in recent years spent 18 months on active duty — about six months in pre-deployment training in the United States, followed by about 12 months in Iraq. Under the old policy, they could not be sent back to Iraq because their cumulative time on active duty would exceed 24 months. Now that cumulative limit has been lifted, giving the Pentagon more flexibility.

The new approach, Pace said, is to squeeze the training, deployment and demobilization into a maximum of 12 months. He called that a "significant planning factor" for Guard and Reserve members and their families.

David Chu, the Pentagon's chief of personnel, said in an interview that he thinks Guard and Reserve members will be cheered by the decision to limit future mobilizations to 12 months. The fact that some with previous Iraq experience will end up spending more than 24 months on active duty is "no big deal," Chu said, because it has been "implicitly understood" by most that they eventually would go beyond 24 months.

A senior U.S. military official who briefed reporters Thursday on Iraq-related developments said that by next January, the Pentagon "probably will be calling again" on National Guard combat brigades that previously served yearlong tours in Iraq. Under Pentagon ground rules, the official could not be further identified.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appearing with Pace, announced several other changes in Guard and Reserve policy:

_Although the Pentagon's goal is to mobilize Guard and Reserve units no more frequently than one year out of six, the demands of wartime will require calling up some units more often than that. They provided no details on how many units would be remobilized at the faster pace or when that would begin to happen.

Army officials had been saying for some time that more frequent mobilizations were necessary because the active-duty force is being stretched too thin. Gates' announcement is the first confirmation of the change.

_To allow for more cohesion among Guard and Reserve units sent into combat, they will be deployed as whole units, rather than as partial units or as individuals plugged into a unit they do not normally train with.

_Extra pay will be provided for Guard and Reserve troops who are required to mobilize more than once in six years; active-duty troops who get less than two years between overseas deployments also will get extra pay. Details were not provided.

_Military commanders will review their administration of a hardship waiver program "to ensure that they have properly taken into account exceptional circumstances facing military families of deployed service members."

As part of Bush's plan for boosting U.S. troop strength in Iraq, a brigade of National Guard soldiers from Minnesota will have its yearlong tour in Iraq extended by 125 days, to the end of July, and a Patriot missile battalion will be sent to the Persian Gulf next month, the Army said Thursday.

Maj. Randy Taylor, a spokesman for the 3rd Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, at Fort Bliss, Texas, said the Patriot unit was aware of the announced deployment. He said no formal order had been received Thursday.

The dispatching of a Patriot missile battery, capable of defending against shorter-range ballistic missile attacks, appeared linked to Bush's announcement Wednesday that he ordered an aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, which would be in easy reach of
Iran, whose nuclear program is a U.S. concern.

Navy officials said the carrier heading to the Gulf region is the USS John C. Stennis, which previously had been in line to deploy to the Pacific. It was not clear Thursday how the Pentagon intended to compensate in the Pacific for the absence of the Stennis in that region, where a chief worry is
North Korea.

The Marines announced that two infantry units — the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, and the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment — will stay in Iraq 60 to 90 days longer than scheduled. That will enable the Marines to have a total of eight infantry battalions in western Anbar province, instead of the current six, by February. Once the 60- to 90-day extension is over, an additional two battalions will be sent in early from their U.S. bases.

Also, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which combines infantry with a helicopter squadron and a logistics battalion, totaling about 2,200 Marines, will stay in Anbar for 45 more days.

Those extensions conform with Bush's announcement that he was ordering 4,000 more Marines to Anbar.

The military tries to avoid extending combat tours and sending forces earlier than planned because it disrupts the lives of troops and their families and makes it harder for the services to get all troops through the education and training programs they need for promotions. But in this case it was deemed unavoidable.

Yep, it might seem that we are in a war, eh?

This is not a war, it’s bush’s personal debacle. People on both sides are dying for bush’s ego, nothing more.

Yep, I see it the same way.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/bosnia/bosnia_5-17.html

May 17, 2000-

CHARLES L. CRAGIN, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs:

I think there are still some out there that have not fully appreciated that this force
has been transformed in the last few years. And to some extent, we don't do a very
good job sometimes in our advertising. I mean, I still hear advertisements that say,
you know, "Two weeks in the summer and, and a couple of days a month."
That's fine as far as it goes. But I think we also have to go the extra mile and explain
that these are expertise areas that we truly rely upon, and we're going to be continuing to use them.

(this was said when Bosnia was the issue and the Republicans were sooooooo against that deployment)

Oh you are funny... its one weekend a month, two weeks a year and every fifth year or more.... but they had to do it. Got no choice

With all due respect the only people fighting this war seems to be the ones putting on the digital polyester blend, strapping a side arm and touring the desert in the original HMMV........... short of that everybody back here is living the dream, partying like its 1999, driving pretty babyblue H2's, shopping in the climate controled megamall, sipping margaritas by the pool and watching American Idiot.

Yeah 1st Sgt, I tend to forget that and still think active duty most of the time. Might be why I get so frustrated with some of the folks here, eh?

What I really saw missing from the Prez's plans or any politicans plan for that matter... was REDUCING our dependency on OIL. Of course in the context of Iraq we'd have to be a little more tactically focused... but this here is the root of the weed we are fighting.

Of course when a plan includes creative ideas and thoughts like "the other guys plan sucks" .....well how could you improve that?

For once I'd like to see a Politican with some 'nads address the oil sucking gluttons we have become.

1SG White

Well talking about it and doing it arn't the same things. I know for at least the past 4 years there has been a project going on in SE Colorado which will reduce the need for fossil fuels drastically. No one talks about it but it's going up because I've seen it.

At 70 mph it takes 30 minutes to drive from one end of it to the other and windmills are as far as the eye can see to the horizon on both sides of US 287. Someday if they keep building this kind of stuff the USA can tell Abdullah to give himself an enema with his oil.

Wake up and smell the coffee, many politicians have gone green. Maybe you should spend a little time talking to the left, many are motivated by green ideas.
Just because bush is an oilman doesn’t mean the country as a whole is on board with the suck oil till it’s gone ideal.
Outside of DC there are thousands of examples where people are going green. One must get their heads out of their rear ends in order to see the progress being made, in spite of the recent republican congressional control. Many Americans are driven by more than profits, some are even conscientious and thoughtful about their environment. Some believe it is immoral to be at war to protect oil supplies, so they are doing what they can to help end our dependency on Middle Eastern oil.

Till I see a reduction in the demand for OIL ... instead of increasing perhaps falling... then its all just lipstick on the pig, if it makes you feel good to think cause a few people are driving hybrids... things are getting better your the one that should be smelling coffee.

Screw the Libertarian thinking that people know whats best... you want to decrease our reliance on OIL... look at changing building codes, getting rid of subsidized highways and road projects, mandating higher fuel standards, subsidizing mass transit, taxing fuel, incentivizing alternative energies...

No way does that happen one person at a time.

IMHO you are describing the crux of the problem. Any time our nation is threatened to the extent bush says we are threatened; the response should be all inclusive. The stupidest thing I’ve ever heard was bush saying to America, “go shopping”.
If the threat was as real as the whitehouse has declared, we should have responded in a similar way as our response to “Pearl Harbor”. A declaration of war, initiate a draft, raise taxes to pay for an enlarged military, an all out effort by every American would have been proper and appropriate.

And there we may have found some common ground after all.

It’s good we agree on this important thought.
Where is it you think we have gone wrong? Either the intel was way off relating to the real threat, or we have been lied too relating to the real threat.
I’ve asked many times for people to describe the worst case scenario relating to radicals taking aim at our way of life, and I’ve tried to compare it to, say the cold war threats. I’m not much different than most thinking Americans, I want the response to be appropriate, relative to the threat. We should not overstate the threat, nor should we underestimate the reality of said threat. Most importantly, we need to be smarter than everyone else in the game.
What do you think sarge?

You mean something like this plan Vaughn?
http://environmentcolorado.org/envcoenergy...amp;id4=FS&

Or would it be more like this one?

http://environmentcolorado.org/envcoenergy...amp;id4=FS&