Lt. Col. Francona: "At some point, you run out of soldiers"
Lt. Col. Rick Francona: "Adjusting combat tour length doesn’t solvethe problem" posted on
The objective is to provide soldiers at least 12 months between combat tours,and at the same time provide higher levels of troops in the region. It’srobbing Peter to pay Paul. It will work in the short term, but at somepoint, you run out of soldiers.
There are proposals to increase the size of the land component, the Army andMarines, by as much as 100,000 troops to supplement the existing 500,000 plustroops. That’s the minimum that is required if we are going to maintainpresence in the world’s hot spots – right now that is Iraq and Afghanistan– and be prepared to defend our interests around the world whereverchallenged. That challenge might come elsewhere in the Middle East –Iran comes to mind – or in Korea, Taiwan, or the Horn of Africa. We mustbe ready to act when needed, not worry about raising the required numbers afterthe crisis presents itself. When we decide that a deployment of U.S.forces is required, we need to send them in numbers that indicate we meanbusiness.
We can’t do that now. On at least one occasion in the last year, thePentagon was forced to deploy the 82nd Airborne Division’s “ready brigadeâ€to Iraq. This is the unit that is supposed to be on call to respond to acrisis anywhere on a moment’s notice. It’s hard to do that whendeployed to Iraq.
I personally think that the tour extensions arethe administration's way of saying "look!, we're making changes in the newway forward"
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