Bush Announces Shorter Combat Deployments

President Bush announced Thursday a plan to cut troop combat tours from 15 months to one year in an effort to ease current strain on the military and help boost morale.

This move comes in response from service commanders concerned about the toll long deployments are having on their soldiers and about the ability of the U.S. military to deal with unanticipated threats.

Bush also embraces the plan put forth by Gen. David Petaeus to halt troop reductions after 20,000 soldiers are withdrawn in July.

Bobby Muller of Veterans for America claims Bush's too little, too late announcement does not cover currently deployed troops:

In short this is a hollow political announcement.

This announcement will do nothing to help the troops currently deployed for 15 months right now, some of whom will not return to the United States until summer 2009. Almost half of the active-duty Army’s frontline units are currently deployed for 15 months, HALF, and of those units, three are on their fourth tour and almost all have been deployed at least twice. We need to reduce everyone’s current tours to 12 months, right now.

From now to the end of this president’s term in office, the overwhelming majority of frontline troops scheduled to deploy are Army National Guard, and their scheduled tours are already 12 months, so again, the President’s announcement does nothing to help them even though many of these troops are scheduled for their second deployment, leaving jobs and families behind again, for a full year.

-Dippold

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