Corps: Marine Iraq tours won’t change - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Corps: Marine Iraq tours won’t change

The Corps is holding tight to its seven-month deployment length as the Army announces it will extend the tours of all soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to 15 months, a Corps official said.

“There are no Marine Corps proposals to increase the time that our operating forces are deployed,” said Lt. Col. T.V. Johnson, spokesman for Commandant Gen. James Conway. “If the Marine Corps was somehow pressured into increasing deployment time, I think there would be very strong reaction from our senior leadership to push back against that.”

While the seven-month deployment fits into the service culture, it also bumps up against the ongoing challenge of a rigorous operational tempo that often gives infantry units just enough time at home to train before their next deployment into combat.

“We’re working real hard to get to a 1-to-2 deployment-to-dwell ratio,” Johnson said, referring to Conway’s goal of keeping Marines home 14 months between seven-month deployments.

“Marines forward deploy even when there’s not a crisis going on,” he added.

Two infantry battalions and one Marine expeditionary unit had their time in Iraq extended earlier this year, and the service recently announced that units on deployment to Japan will see their seven-months tours extended to one year.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday announced that all active Army soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the U.S. Central Command area of operations will spend a total of 15 months in theater.

The new policy also will apply to soldiers preparing to deploy, Gates said in a briefing at the Pentagon.

The move, which does not include two brigades that have already been extended for 16-month tours in Iraq, will guarantee the soldiers one year at home, Gates said. Without this new policy, soldiers from five active Army brigades would have had to deploy before getting at least one year at home.

“I realize this decision will ask a lot of our troops and their families,” but this policy will give soldiers and their families more predictability regarding the time they will spend in theater and at home, Gates said.

How long this policy for Army deployments stays in place will depend on conditions on the ground, Gates said.

The policy does not affect National Guard troops, who have been told they will be mobilized for no more than 12 months at a time.

News of the Army extensions was not well received by at least one influential lawmaker on Capitol Hill. “This new policy will be an additional burden to an already overstretched Army,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo. “I think this will have a chilling effect on recruiting, retention and readiness.”