I'm listening to NPR's Talk of the Nation right now, and they're talking about deployment of Reserve units to Iraq. They gave this rather bizarre example when a reservist asked why he was being sent back to Iraq a second time when there were still huge numbers of fellow soldiers who haven't gone overseas yet.

The gentleman is a rifle carrier. He served a tour in Iraq and is preparing for his second. He asked why he was being sent a second time instead of being sent to Germany to relieve an active duty rifle carrier stationed there so that the active duty soldier with the same skills, who hasn't been to Iraq yet, would go serve a tour.

The reserve general who said something strange at this point. He said that reservists and national guard units don't want to be treated like second class citizens, being sent to hold down the fort on some distant outpost while their active duty counterpart is being sent overseas to fight the real war. Does this make any sense? If you're going to redeploy a reserve unit that's already spent time in Iraq, why not just send them to hold down a fort so that an active duty unit which hasn't served in Iraq go out instead? True, there's still stress on the soldier for deployment, but at least he's not having to go out to the front again. I would think that this would help reduce the impact of all that combat stress by spreading it out a bit more.

I'd like to hear some opinions on this, in particular from the active duty, reserve, and veteran types.

12/12/2006 3:37:32 PM

I'm thinking this is something well out of his control. Remember, individual soldiers are not units, no matter what that whole "Army of One" ad might have said.

At higher levels, people don't so much look at how many times an individual person has gone but rather in terms of what unit is ready for rotation, etc. At least on active duty, people change out through units all the time, unlike in the Reserves or Guard where people tend to stay in the same geographic location for life. It sounds like he just happened to be in his unit through two rotations.

I'm also trying to follow his logic here: What would be the point of him mobilizing so that he could go to Germany to relieve an active duty guy to go in his place?

[Edited on December 12, 2006 at 5:00 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2006 4:50:48 PM

his logic that people would rather go to germany than iraq seems easy enough to follow

12/12/2006 6:43:12 PM

So he mobilizes and goes to Germany to do what?

Goes on active duty in Germany for a year where he will train to go to Iraq or Afghanistan and might wind up on the deployment rotation again for either of those two places?

Find a desk job for him to do in Germany? (if you thought your pay system was bad now, just wait till we start filling the slots with infantrymen)

[Edited on December 12, 2006 at 8:26 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2006 8:13:21 PM

im not saying its a good solution, just saying the logic was pretty clear

12/12/2006 8:36:04 PM

By that logic, you could have just as easily said that most soldiers would rather go to Tahiti than Iraq.

I think this guy is more than anything, just upset he has to go again. Probably somewhat more upset due to the fact he's in the reserves and has to give up regular life to go back over there. Probably upset that this is his second time and other people haven't gone yet. He's looking for a singular, external factor to blame it all on. Unfortunately, that's the luck of the draw, and unfortunately, it's something he has to deal with. Some people are in schools, other units that are between rotations, etc. Is it fair? No. Is there a magic (and practical) solution that makes it fair? Probably not.

[Edited on December 12, 2006 at 9:02 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2006 8:54:43 PM

do we have soldiers on long term deployment in tahiti? if yes then yes

12/12/2006 8:56:30 PM

Are you deliberately not making sense?

There's no soldiers on long-term deployment in Germany either. That's a PCS move where you go back to your house at the end of the day.



[Edited on December 12, 2006 at 9:06 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2006 9:03:52 PM

i know people who have parents that have been in germany for a long time, some of them in combat roles and not desk jockeys. so whatever that is called.


[Edited on December 12, 2006 at 9:15 PM. Reason : from out of bragg]

12/12/2006 9:07:10 PM

That would be called "I'm stationed in Germany. I live there. I might even have a house there. I train in Germany to go to war somewhere else in the world, which in this case, might be Iraq. It's very much like being stationed in Fort Bragg or Fort Campbell or anywhere else CONUS--or even, like any reserve station, in a sense--except it's in a foreign country."

(Although I guess this happens less often with 1-year tours they have there now)

[Edited on December 12, 2006 at 9:18 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2006 9:12:51 PM

HINT: it probably costs more to train and retain an active duty soldier
so the army is likely tired of wasting the expensive models on this pointless war

so they'll just keep feeding the iraqi insurgents the generic version, who really can't tell the difference

consider it the multinational-conflict human-lives version of the Diet Pepsi Challenge

12/13/2006 12:51:24 AM

Hmm... interesting. Thanks for the insight everyone.

12/20/2006 1:06:39 PM

id like to know what infantry or combat arms brigades / battalions haven't deployed to iraq yet.

12/20/2006 2:14:21 PM

F-Troop

12/20/2006 2:39:08 PM

^^ Outside of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, I think most of the 8th Army, 2nd Infantry Division is still stationed in Korea, waiting for the communists to light up the penninsula. Don't know about stateside units though.

12/20/2006 3:33:45 PM

Could it be that the people in Germany are good at doing the things that need to be done in Germany and he is good at doing the things that need to be done in Iraq?

Maybe the other unit ended up in Germany by sheer luck of the draw, but now they are experienced in whatever goes on in Germany so the army doesn't want to send them away and start from scratch with a new unit there.

Could it be that it is cheaper to send one unit from The US to Iraq than it is to send one unit from the US to Germany and one unit from Germany to Iraq?

Just a couple of thoughts.

12/20/2006 5:29:13 PM