Army Tours of Duty Expected to Drop to 9 Months

Aug. 5, 2011 -- Defense officials confirm that the Army will announce today that its troops will no longer be serving year-long combat deployments as they move towards nine-month tours of duty.

The change will not affect troops currently serving in warzones or those soon to go. The new nine month deployment schedule will begin in January, 2012 and will become a staggered process as troops replace outgoing troops throughout the year. Units departing before January will still depart on a 12 month deployment.For example, a combat brigade will leave this December, just missing the new policy date so they'll head out for a full year. But because the policy won't be fully in place until April it's still possible that some units may still depart on yearlong deployments until then. The Army has been studying the change for some time and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey had advocated the change when he was the commander of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command. The timeline for implementing the change is unclear.

The announcement should ease the stress of soldiers who've had to endure the longest combat deployments among the military services. At one point, during the surge in Iraq in 2007, Army units were serving 15-month deployments.

Currently soldiers are supposed to get at least two years off in between overseas combat deployments, what's known as "dwell time." In a June interview with the Army Times, former Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said the Army was looking at increasing dwell times to three years, but that it might take until 2014 for such a change to be fully implemented.

There won't be a dwell time announcement today because the goals have shifted and it's unclear when they will be reached. Because the Army's shifting from years to months, the dwell time ratio will also be factored in months. The new goal is a 1 to 3 dwell time which translates to 9 months in combat and 27 months at home – so three months more than they get now. Some high-need units right now often don't get their two year dwell time. For example, Army helicopter brigades are currently on 18 month breaks in between combat because these units have a higher rotation cycle.

There are some soldiers who won't be affected by the new nine-month policy. In some cases servicemen are deployed individually and don't go with a unit, they're known as "individual augmentees" or IA's. There will be no change to deployment schedules for IA's, they're still going to deploy for a year at a time.The nine months deployments are nothing new for the Army National Guard and Reserve. They're mobilized for a year, but after training for the first month or so they spend nine months deployed to combat zones.

A current perk that will be affected by the shift in deployment schedules will be the eventual disappearance of the two week R&R breaks that Army soldiers have come to expect during their deployments. Most troops use these breaks to return home and visit their families.

Marines serve seven-month combat tours and have seven months off between their next deployment. For sailors, ship deployments last a minimum of six months and some serve nine-month deployments depending on ship rotation schedules. Air Force Airmen serve a minimum six-month deployment.