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Editorial: Month home shifts burden

Marines are deploying three, four or more times to Iraq. But you won’t hear much in the way of complaints, because a shared sense of honor and duty overrides most self-interest.

Yet, there is no escaping the fact that repeated deployments are tough on Marines.

Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Corps has maintained seven-month rotations into the war zone. In most cases, Marines get seven months or more to rest up and train before their next war tour. But in some instances, they return after just five or six months.

Cracks in the system are beginning to show, highlighted by a recent mental health survey of combat troops that showed mental health issues increase in direct relation to the length and frequency of deployments and the amount of combat experience troops endure.

Longer breaks between combat tours won’t eliminate mental health issues. But they can certainly ease the strain. That’s why Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., plans to introduce an amendment to the 2008 defense budget that guarantees deployed troops a month at home for every month deployed.

The initiative squares with the efforts of Gen. James Conway, who, upon becoming commandant last year, pledged to “right-size” the force in order to give Marines two months home for every month deployed. So the seven-month war tour most Marines do now would net 14 months at home before the next pump.

It will take years and thousands more Marines to make that a realistic possibility. Conway hopes to grow the Corps to 202,000 Marines by 2011 with that aim in mind.

In the meantime, however, Webb’s plan is a double-edged sword: It presents short-term protection for troops’ well-being, while effectively forcing the Pentagon to either cut troop levels in the war zone or shift more of the burden to the Guard, reserve or the other services.