Chairman of Joint Chiefs Pace: Combat tours could reduce to 12 months come Spring

Above: A soldier with the 3rd Infantry Division Iraqi Army soldiers in a search for explosive-making materials and unauthorized weapons in the Adhamiyah district of Baghdad last week.

Pace visited Forward Operating Base Fenty as part of a week-long farewell tour in Iraq and Afghanistan before before he retires at the end of September.

Pace said plans are in the works for deployment lengths to go back to 12 months in the early part of next year, and “that over time — not tomorrow — but over time, units … will deploy for 12 months and be home for 24 months, and in that 24 months get family time, get full-spectrum training and be ready to go wherever the nation needs them to go.”

In fact, Pace said, if Afghanistan and Iraq remain the military’s focus, he and the other top brass will stick to a plan that will reduce 15-month deployments to 12 in early 2008, meaning the next active-duty rotations will be away from home for only a year, with more reductions to follow after that.

Of course, all this came with one caveat: “If some other nation around the globe does something stupid tomorrow, and we need to respond to it … all bets are off,” Pace said.

Read the rest at Stars and Stripes

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