Pentagon abandons active-duty time limit

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.

I was in the military as well.

The Army had grown to nearly 800,000 due to IraqI. It was downsizing from a plus up. There was a study group that was recommending a permanent downsizing of the military, due to the "peace dividend" expected after the fall of the Soviet Union. This was delayed by the IraqI War.

That war ended in approximately mid-1991. The election was held in November of 92 and BushI (41) lost to Clinton. Clinton came into office in Jan of 93 and stayed until 2001 when he was replaced by BushII (43). We are soon to be in B43's 7'th year.

It was after that war that the review began regarding the downsizing of American Forces. I believe that 41 was looking at a cut to about 15 active Army divisions. He lost that election and the decision was left to C42, who, after trying to get homosexuals in the military, decided to cut the Army to 10 divisions.

It was far too large a cut, and events in the last 10 years have proven that to be an irrefutable truth.

What's the incentive to stay in the Reserves especially if your a small business owner or have to take a pay cut during deployments.

Part of me says they need to suck it up and deal with it - they knew the risks when they signed on. The other part me says that's very disrespectful of the service and sacrifices they have already made.

I think the bigger issue here, and I think many will gloss over it deliberately, is why hasn't the current President Bush, and the Republican Congress we've had up until recently done anything about increasing the size of the active duty military.

We can bitch about what the first President Bush did, and about what Clinton did, and we can pat outselves on the back for pointing out what they did to the size and strength of our military, but the current administration has been in office for many years now, and what I saw was them maintaining the status quo or worse. Hell, the Air Force, and I believe the Navy, even went through a RIF in the past few years, and yet we've had recruiting shortages in the Army (or very near it).

President Bush has had ample opportunity to make the case for increasing the size of the active-duty military, and has had ample opportunity to explain the need for such an increase to the American people.

We knew after 9/11 and our activities that started up in Afghanistan, that we were going to be fighting a war that is going to be manpower intensive. All of our high-tech equipment does us no good against an enemy who doesn't need electricity, who is willing to communicate using means other than radios, who can sleep or hide in a hut or a ditch or a cave - we have to put boots on the ground. Our enemies were not strangers - in many cases we funded them and helped them fight the Soviets in the '80s. We knew full well what kind of war it was going to be.

We then, for better or for worse, went into Iraq without having found Bin Laden, without having finished in Afghanistan. Whether it was a mistake made in analyzing intelligence, or we were out-right lied to by the administration or the administration was lied to by analysts, none of that makes any difference now. We have to play the hand we were dealt.

I do not believe the American people as a whole, have had it explained to them just what kind of war we are in - a war that has raged for centuries, a war that is going to be fought in the Middle East, Africa, and as we've seen with the bombings in Spain and England, and the problems in France, Germany, and Denmark, in Europe, and one that has already seen attacks in the US. This is a war without a forseeable end, and it's one that can't be fought with the push of a button. It's going to require a huge change in the way we think of traditional warfare. It's also going to require a change in the way we think about our border security, which runs contrary to what the GOP and businesses want - i.e. open borders.

This is a war with an enemy that will not stop until they are all dead or we are all dead or converted. They've fought this war for a thousand years, and will do so for another thousand.

The administration knows what kind of war this is, and they've done a piss-poor job of selling it to the American people, whether they think it will hurt them in the polls or whether they think the American people can or cannot handle it, for whatever the reason, it's been a piss-poor job the whole way.

Once upon a time, I used to think that President Bush understood this war, and knew that if we didn't fight it in Afghanistan or Iraq, that we would end up fighting it in the United States. I think maybe he still realizes that, but I also think he's let us down, in not only explaining it to the American public, but making provisions to fight it. I never really cared for Rumsfeld when he served under Ford, and I never really cared for him under Bush - I will give him credit for trying to turn the military around to an extend - he canceled some expensive programs that were just a drain on resources, and he recognized the need for a more mobile military, but he shares a little bit of the blame for some of the arrogance he displayed, both before and after the invasion of Iraq. He seemed flexible in some areas, but in other areas he was not, and what we need is flexibility in that position (and we may have it with Gates).

My apologies for rambling, but my point is, Bush has had ample time to make the case to the American people and to Congress that we need not only a major increase in our active-duty military, but that we need some kind of more formal declaration of war. He had a Republican Congress for many years, and did little to nothing about it.

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