Only a Few Bear Brunt of Frequent Deployments, Pentagon Advisers Report
April 10, 2009 -- A group of Pentagon advisers says service deployment policies -- not a shortage of troops alone -- have strained portions of the ground forces through frequent deployments to combat zones.
The Defense Business Board's claim comes amid new discussion in Congress about the required end-strength of the Army.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) attached an amendment to the pending fiscal year 2010 budget resolution that would grow the size of the active-duty Army by 30,000 to 577,000. “We must act now to reduce the strain on the men and women who bravely serve our country," Lieberman said in an April 2 statement.
Former President George W. Bush approved the last end-strength increase for the ground forces in early 2007. Under the plan, now close to complete, the Army was to grow by 65,000 soldiers to 547,000. The Marine Corps increase was 27,000, for a total of 202,000.
But efforts to increase the size of the military alone “may not relieve stress sufficiently if the current force is not being fully utilized,” DBB panelists argue in a January 2009 report, posted on the group's Web site last month.
According to the document, 6 percent of U.S. active-duty forces, or 93,000 individuals, served 25 months or more of “combat duty” between September 2001 and December 2008. In contrast, 74 percent of forces (or around 1.1 million) served 12 months or less during the same time period, the report states. Individuals serving 13 to 16 months made up 12 percent; those serving 17 to 24 months account for 8 percent.
Panelists reviewed the pay records of 1,500 individuals using hostile-fire pay, or HFP, as an indicator of when they were deployed to combat zones. “The task group chose to examine payroll records as a truth teller to provide a common unit of measure among all the armed forces,” DBB members wrote.
Hostile-fire pay is $225 per month, according to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, which manages military pay matters. Formally designated combat zones include much of the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of Africa.
Among the services, the Army “appears to experience the greatest stress” resulting from repeat and prolonged deployments to combat zones, the DBB report states. Across the services, the enlisted ranks between E4 and E6 and the officer ranks O3 and O4 “appear to bear the greatest burden of stress,” the report states.
“The data presented a dominating case that current policies and practices are potentially creating two groups: individuals that repeatedly deploy and individuals that do not deploy at all,” the DBB report states.
Members called on Defense Secretary Robert Gates to examine the services' “institutional enterprise assignment policies,” which, according to panelists, “appear to create excessive deployments of certain portions of the force, while at the same time isolating others from deployment.”
New and “reasonable” measures of “stress” on the forces also are needed, they wrote.
“The [Defense Business Board] is hopeful that the secretary will share the board's sense of urgency to conduct a more in-depth study of force utilization and move quickly to achieve a healthier and more effective force,” DBB task force co-chairmen Michael Bayer and Frederic Cook wrote.
During a briefing with reporters this week, Gates expressed reservations against the Lieberman plan to boost the size of the Army by an additional 30,000, Inside the Pentagon reported yesterday.
“I think that we have increased the size of the ground forces, counting both the Army and the Marine Corps, by 92,000,” Gates said. “Let’s get there, see where we are with that. I think calls to extend it beyond that are premature. I would not say that they are wrong. I just think they’re premature.”
Whether Gates has seen the Defense Business Board study could not be determined. His spokesman did not return a request for comment.
Defense Department spokesman Cmdr. Darryn James, who handles media inquiries for the DBB, told InsideDefense.com the study's recommendations “have been submitted and they are being reviewed by the appropriate DOD directorates.”
One Army official, when asked about the study's tenets, said reviewing only combat pay to measure deployment strains can be misleading.
“While a soldier or marine only earns combat pay on the ground, Navy and Air Force personnel have to only be in the airspace or nearby waters to draw the pay -- they can go years without ever losing the amenities of home and still draw the pay,” the official said. “There's also some disparity within the ground services, because support personnel in, say, Kuwait draw the pay and live the good life in relative luxury compared to a someone in Bayji, [Iraq]. Multiple tours in Camp Arifjan [in Kuwait] is a lot different than a single tour in Ramadi.” -- Sebastian Sprenger
April 10, 2009