Army deployments still too long

"The Air Force is beginning to experience real success with

its 90-day, Expeditionary Aerospace Force

program. The Army would be wise to follow suit."

In a few short months, Army Chief of Staff Gen.Eric Shinseki has initiated some of the Army's boldest and most foresighted initiatives ever. His decision to begin transitioning the organization into a lighter, more mobile, yet still lethal force should prove to be his enduring legacy

And his March 6 announcement to limit active, Guard and Reserve deployments to 6 months was certainly a step in the right direction. But it didn't go far enough.

The Air Force is beginning to experience real success with its 90-day Expeditionary Aerospace Force, or EAF, program. The Army would be wise to follow suit.

Recent remarks made by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Henry Shelton to the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee highlight the importance of the Army's necessity to reconsider reducing their peacetime mobilization limits.

"The current tempo of operations is having an effect on service members and also on their family members," Shelton said. "We still encounter frequent, often unexpected and persistent, deployments. And that, of course, produces stress.

"But most importantly, I think, our high pace of operations impacts quality of life. And it could, if we aren't careful, jeopardize our capability to retain the great quality force that we have worked so hard to build," he said.

Air Force Secretary F Whitten Peters, on a separate occasion, stated that "making life better for everyone in the Air Force is my number one priority for 2000, and I know that the frequency and unpredictability of deployments remains everyone's number one concern."

"We are moving into the EAF for two reasons," Peters said. "First, to make sure the nation has the trained aerospace forces it needs. Second, to make sure our people have relief from OPTEMPO in a turbulent world. ... We will never fix our retention rates unless we can guarantee people that in peacetime, they will have a personal life." In a recent Army Times article, "Four Years and Counting ... Bosnia/For Most Soldiers, Conflicts More Personal Than Physical,"Staff Sgt. James Casill summed up the deployment problem that crosses all components and branches.

"For [many] soldiers, the hardest part of the mission is feeling helpless when they hear about difficulties at home," he said. "The work itself is not difficult. Family separation is probably the most difficult to deal with."

While being away from home is equally hard on all soldiers, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R Texas, who led a Congressional delegation to Bosnia, to visit Texas' 49th Armored Division, expressed a concern unique to the reserve components.

"It would be my hope that if we are going to use Guard units in peacekeeping missions, that we would have much shorter mission times," Hutchison said.

"If we're going to take people away from their employment, we want to keep the employers' support and keep their ability to continue in the workplace, without severe disruptions, [so we can] retain the best people in the Guard.

"It would be my hope, in making policy as a representative in Congress, that we would shorten deployments of Guard units, even below six months."

The Air Force EAF model has benefits for all the services. Limiting deployments to 90 days would optimally serve the needs of the Army overseas as well as better serve the needs of their most valuable resources, their soldiers and families.

In addition, the National Guard can better serve the Army by developing force packages of its own. If the Army would delegate missions to the Guard, we could select units, develop rotations and satisfy unique requirements while minimizing the stress on people and units.

Today, as always, the Guard continues to serve and work as a full partner in ongoing military operations, at home and around the world. We would simply like the Army to take the next step in modernizing the way we support America's military operations, by giving us the flexibility to develop unit packages for mission support and reducing mobilization limits to 90 days.

Maj. Gen. E. Gordon

Stump President, NGAUS

Copyright National Guard Association of the United States May 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved