The Soldiers' Stories: Longer Iraq tour means extension in family anxiety

Gayle Berner watches her daughter's soccer game in Friedberg, Germany. Berner just learned that her husband and other members of the 1st Brigade Combat Team will stay in Iraq past their planned departures.

BUTZBACH, Germany — Gayle Berner learned last week that her husband's unit would stay in Iraq 46 days past its planned departure date in early January.
She wasn't that surprised. "I was really upset last time," Berner said this weekend. "But this year, I kind of expected it."

The brigade's last tour, 15 months ending in July 2004, included a three-month extension. "You can argue with the Army all you want. It's not going to change anything," Berner said.

In its fourth year of war in Iraq, the U.S. military is struggling to keep about 140,000 troops there while fulfilling other commitments and reorganizing its forces. The extended tour of the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Armored Division — about 3,800 troops based near here — was ordered so the force replacing it, a unit from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, could complete a year of preparation before redeploying to Iraq, the Pentagon announced last Monday.

"Bottom line: There are only so many (brigade combat teams) in the Army," Col. Sean MacFarland, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, said in an e-mail from Iraq. Brigades generally have several thousand soldiers.

MacFarland's troops have one of the toughest missions in Iraq: helping secure Ramadi, a city west of Baghdad in the Sunni Arab heartland. Ramadi and surrounding Anbar province have been among the most violent areas of the country. Sunni insurgents regularly use roadside bombs, snipers and car bombs to attack U.S. and Iraqi government forces. The brigade has not released a casualty total.

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