War Zone Vets Face New 15-Month Tours

Aug. 4, 2007 — -- For most soldiers these days, when you're not in Iraq you're training to go to Iraq.

Recently, Gen. Richard Cody, the vice chief of staff of the Army, traveled to Fort Polk, La., to visit soldiers preparing to deploy back to the war zone, many for the third time.

Under the Pentagon's new policy, this 15-month deployment will be the longest yet.

"It's high stress," said Capt. Jeremy Ussery, the commander of Bravo Company, a 150-man unit of the 101st Airborne Division. "Just imagine the highest stress you've been under, and then be under that kind of stress for 15 months."

Bravo Company returned from Iraq last fall after losing 10 soldiers in a grim, deadly tour. Now, the survivors are already on their way back to Iraq.

"We know every one of those 10 guys personally, and so you have to prepare yourself for the fact that you may lose guys in combat," Ussery said.

Cody is worried about what long deployments are doing to his soldiers.

"What do you think about deployments? Too long?" Cody asked troops at Fort Polk. "We think so, too.

"I know and the senior leadership of your Army knows that 15 months is too long, and we want to get off of 15 months as fast as we can," he said.

For Cody, this is personal. His two sons are Army Apache pilots who have spent much of the past five years in Iraq or Afghanistan. Capt. Clint Cody, 30, will soon head back to Afghanistan for his fourth combat tour.

"I'm extremely proud of him. Just like any parent I worry about him," Gen. Cody told ABC News.

"We're asking a lot more now of our Army families who have soldiers in harm's way. We're asking a lot of the soldiers," he said. "The wear and tear over time is not where we want it to be. We want our soldiers to have better balance."

Cody is also worried that the longer deployments will hurt the Army's ability to recruit and retain soldiers, particularly young officers that lead the units into battle.

"We are seeing some warning signs out there with our captains," he said. "We are going to be doing several things to work through so that we keep as many of our combat-tested captains" as possible.