Of the 14 active-duty brigades that will be available for deployment in December, five have already served three tours abroad since 2002 and four have already served two. If either the 3rd brigade of the 101st Airborne Division or the 1st brigade of the 10th Mountain Division are asked to deploy to Afghanistan, it will be their fifth tour since 2002.*
If I noted that the New York Yankees have won 27 World Series titles since 1927, would you then conclude that those players must sure be tired by now?
No. Obviously the players in the 1927 team are different than the players in the 2009 team even thought the unit known as the "Yankees" went to the World Series and won those 27 times.
Don't get me wrong, we need to avoid the stress on individuals when we deploy our Army. Some do face multiple tours. They may go out as a private and next time they're a squad leader and then a platoon sergeant. But not all go back in the same role. They are promoted and may not even be in a combat unit out on the line every day as they were when they were first deployed.
Remember that when a brigade deploys, 60% (by memory, so excuse me if the number is off a bit--but the point remains) of its personnel are on their first deployment, being new enlistees. It matters not one bit that their unit has gone overseas to fight 1 time or 5 times.
And let me repeat what I've argued many times--the Army exists to fight and win our wars--not to exist as a pristine force. If we need to break the Army to win our wars, so be it. I don't think the choice is either/or, since we can do things to lessen the strains on the Army and its soldiers, but if we face that choice--break the Army to win.
If we lose a war, that will break the Army. How many will get out or not enlist because they wonder if risking their lives to fight a war we won't win isn't worth it? And if we win, repairing what is broken is far easier than repairing an Army broken from losing.
Within the limits of what we plan to do, I think that with the active Army and Marines plus our reserve components, we can handle the escalation in Afghanistan when we speak of rotating units. The initial article's indication that a number of National Guard brigades are in Iraq (I assume not sent as a complete brigade but broken down for security missions--either base or route protection) challenges my assumptions about unit rotations, but not by much. And as we draw down in Iraq, I assume those units will draw down quite a bit, too, freeing up units for rotations to Afghanistan.
And yes, we won't have many free units to deploy to a crisis, but if there is a crisis that bad we can call on units preparing to go overseas while accelerating units recovering from deployment to take their place--or even mobilize more reservists. We have options if you assume the current administration would actually decide to fight someplace else.
This doesn't mean the individuals within our units don't need our attention. But that is a separate issue.
