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Schoomaker: Plan on 12-month deployments for now

By Joe Burlas
October 28, 2004

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Oct. 28, 2004) -- Soldiers scheduled to head overseas in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the next two years shouldn't hold their breath waiting for shorter deployments in the near future, according to the Army's top two uniformed leaders.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker and Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard A. Cody discussed deployments, recruiting challenges and other Army issues during a media roundtable Oct. 26 at the Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

"Of course we would like to reduce tour lengths -- absolutely -- but that will not work right now," Schoomaker said. "Plan on seeing 12-month, boots-on-the-ground deployments until the level of commitment comes down."

Schoomaker and Cody gave several reasons for maintaining the current deployment length:

o Fighting an adaptable enemy requires troops with experience on the ground. Shorter deployments would mean more troops per year needing "greening" time in theater to gain that experience. This is also a reason the rotation between Operation Iraqi Freedom 2 and 3 forces is being conducted across about a nine-month period rather than the roughly 45 days it took to swap out OIF 1 with OIF 2.

o Current deployment length allows Soldiers to establish and maintain contacts with the local population -- not only to win their "hearts and minds," but also for gathering intelligence on the insurgency.

o Shorter tours would mean greater demand for National Guard and Reserve units to mobilize than currently is the case.

o Current efforts to rebalance the force among the types of units in the active, Guard and Reserve means a number of Soldiers remain unavailable to deploy due to retraining requirements. The Army plans to convert 100,000 positions in the next few years -- roughly 35,000 of those positions have been converted in the past year.

Asked if the Army will send more troops over to Iraq beyond the approximately 135,000 currently there to safeguard the Iraqi elections planned for January, Cody said the combatant commander had not made that request. He added that the Army is prepared to surge forces quickly into the Central Command theater if the request is made in the future.

On the possibility of a draft to man the force, Schoomaker said it was unlikely, reminding reporters that the draft resolution for World War II passed by a single vote.

The chief discussed the successes of exceeding the active Army's and Reserve's recruiting and retention goals, despite unscheduled midyear increases in those goals.

"We cannot take for granted (that) the successes we had this year will follow into the next year, but I am optimistic we are putting the right resources forward needed to grow," Schoomaker said.

Whatever challenges the Army faces in recruiting, they are not the Army's alone, Cody said, but the nation's as well, as it is the nation's youth that the Army recruits.

The Army's plans to modularize its combat formations will increase the number of units available for deployment, and could eventually mean shorter deployment lengths, Cody said. In the past year, the Army grew by three brigade combat teams as several OIF 1 divisions returned to homestation and reset into modular formations. Three more brigades will be added in the current fiscal year and another four in FY 2006, he said.