A 15-month deployment diffuses the impact of the orientation period and also balances the hand-off time at the end of a rotation, he said.
“You don’t want to start things you can’t finish toward the end of your cycle,” he said. “With the 15-month cycle, you’re looking at getting more effective combat power on the ground at any given time.”
About exactly right - When looking at the perspective of the conventional Big Green - 15 month tours make a lot of sense - Tough at times, but make a lot of operational sense for the Big Green.
it also produced a lot of complacent soldiers and hurts moral. You get sick of patrolling the same area for so long your soldiers get complacent and then become easy targets. Long deployments wear out the combat grunt, maybe its good for the people who spend all their time on the base camps and FOBS, but the infantry grunt that is doing the brunt of the fighting is worn out after about 6-8 months.