That's good. Fifteen months at home would be very good for people.
I don't know what I'd do if we were home 24 months between deployments! I just left the Army, but guys my age who are staying in have known nothing but a year on, year off schedule. It will be an adjustment, but the military families need it.
A draft would have been good 7 years ago when the public sentiment was high. Now it would be a nightmare. Plus a draft wouldn't mesh well with the AVF. It takes years to grow SFCs and CPTs, a draft wouldn't reduce the pressure put on the NCOs and officers just the junior Soldiers.
They talk a good show, but what they don't address is the individual Soldier's dwell time. The unit or BCT that deployed will get that dwell time, but when a unit re-deploys, there are PCS moves that can put Soldiers into a unit that is getting ready to deploy and the individual's dwell time is not considered. This is the nature of the BCT concept. The only way to get that full dwell time is to remain in the same unit or BCT after re-deployment, but a lot of Soldiers don't get the option of staying or don't want to stay. I re-deployed from Iraq and then deployed to Afghanistan 9 months later and then our tour was extended to 15 months. I was then lucky enough to go to a BCT that was on the same cycle as the unit I left so I will get 16 months of dwell time, but this is more the exception, rather than the norm. I'm sure the deployment cycles will ease up in the near future, but there are still going to be a lot of Soldiers out there doing back to back deployments.
Secretary Gates is right about not putting boots on the ground in Afghanistan for all the wrong reasons. That's one reason why we lost the war in the 'Nam. Longer dwell times will give these men and their families the breathing space that they need between tours, and probably reduce the stresses resulting in divorces, etc., too.
