[Peace-discuss] Pentagon abandons active-duty time limit

[Ricky Baldwin]

This is an amazing and outrageous development, in my
view.  It also ought to open up more avenues for us to
make common ground with soldiers and veterans groups. 
We should pounce on it.  Letters to the editor, WILL
commentaries, maybe a handout for Jan 27 if we're
demonstrating then ... ???
Ricky

Pentagon abandons active-duty time limit

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer Jan 12, 2007

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.


 
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