Deployments Take Toll on U.S. Military

Navy Petty Officer David Dunahugh was looking forward to getting home as the helicopter carrier Inchon steamed back toward Norfolk last June. After six months at sea off Somalia, Dunahugh was ready for a break--and some time with his family.

But the 32-year-old Dunahugh didn’t get to stay home for very long. Barely 12 days after he got back to Norfolk, the Inchon was ordered to take part in the U.S. invasion of Haiti. Along with about 2,900 other sailors and 2,000 Marines, Dunahugh was off to sea once again.

With probable understatement, the 12-year Navy veteran recalls his wife’s reaction: “It didn’t go over very well.”

Dunahugh’s extended absence from home illustrates a growing problem as the nation’s armed forces, although scaled back from their Cold War days, are called on to undertake more missions.

During the past three years, the United States has sent thousands of troops, ships and aircraft on 27 deployments, among them keeping peace in Somalia and Haiti, enforcing “no-fly” zones over Bosnia and Iraq and blunting last fall’s Iraqi troop buildup near Kuwait.

Military leaders complain that the spate of such operations has forced them to keep units deployed far longer than usual, wearing out equipment ahead of schedule, crimping needed combat training and placing added strains on troops.

Critics contend that “operations other than war,” as these deployments are known, can erode a unit’s combat edge. Flying patrols over Iraq, for example, may add to pilots’ flying hours, but it does not give them practice in aerial combat skills.

“The differences are big ones: Peacekeepers are trained to use minimum force; a warrior is trained to shoot quickly,” said David Evans, a military analyst with Business Executives for National Security, a defense-oriented research group.

Although not all units have been affected, the stepped-up pace has had a significant effect on quick-reaction crews, such as military police and those who work on Airborne Warning and Control Systems, Navy amphibious teams and Army Patriot missiles.

Defense Secretary William J. Perry has suggested that the cumulative strain of unusually long deployments by AWACS crews may have been a factor in last April’s mistaken shoot-down of two Army helicopters by a pair of Air Force F-15C fighters over Iraq.

Air Force Brig. Gen. John R. Dallager, commander of the 52nd Fighter Wing, told visitors last fall that continual deployments away from Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany had intensified strains on the families of service members there.

Dallager’s A-10 fighter pilots spent 190 days away from home last year, well beyond the 120-day maximum that the Air Force considers optimal. Meanwhile, incidents of spousal abuse at the base have risen 9%, alcoholism is up 11% and child abuse has soared by 20%.

Air Force Capt. Timothy J. Hogan, an A-10 pilot, says he has spent almost two-thirds of the past 22 months deployed away from the base, missing birthdays, holidays and his wedding anniversary. His wife, Linda, says she feels “like a single parent.”

As for the Navy, ships spent more time away from home last year than during the Cold War year of 1985. Overseas deployments consumed an average of 56 days per three months last year, compared to 54 days a decade earlier. Even while they were assigned to home port, warships were out on training missions or sea trials an average of 32 days per three months in 1994, up from 27 days in 1985.

Adm. Jeremy Boorda, the chief of naval operations, says military leaders fear that continuation of such a heavy deployment schedule will discourage service members from re-enlisting and will have a major impact on long-term retention rates.

If the Navy let the number of days that a sailor must spend at sea “stretch much longer than six months, we’d lose lots of people,” Boorda said. That, in turn, would leave the services critically short of needed managers in both officer and enlisted ranks.

The fast pace has drawn criticism from Congress, where Republicans have begun using the horror stories as evidence that the Clinton Administration’s aggressive use of the armed forces has been hurting preparedness.

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), chairman of the House National Security military personnel subcommittee, has warned that the increased pace is threatening to turn the military into a “hollow force,” much like the one that earned that label in the 1970s.

Partly in response to congressional concern, the General Accounting Office has begun a major study to determine the consequences of the heavy deployment pace. The Army Research Institute has begun a similar probe.

The impact of the heavy deployment is not uniform, even among units that are on the cutting edge. The Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard have been hit hardest. In other services, the problem affects only a few select units.

Moreover, not every outfit involved in back-to-back deployments has suffered.

By any standard, for example, the Army’s 10th Mountain Division should be one of those complaining the loudest. In 1992, units of the Ft. Drum, N.Y.-based light infantry division spent eight weeks in South Florida, aiding victims of Hurricane Andrew.

In 1993, the division was dispatched to Somalia for four months. And early last autumn, the division was called up for a similar stint in Haiti. Add in training exercises in Georgia, Panama and Puerto Rico, and the division has been on the road about 65% of the time.

Yet the time away from home and the inconvenience do not appear to have taken a particularly heavy toll.

On the deployment to Haiti, the division was not allowed to take its artillery because the mission was for peacekeeping, not hostile action. So members of its artillery brigade came back rusty and are having to retrain.

Col. Alfred A. Valenzuela, the division’s artillery commander, says his units have begun a six-week crash “recovery” program to regain their skills in handling and shooting their weapons. “It’s like learning to crawl again,” he said.

But the division’s Cobra helicopters flew almost constantly in missions that commanders say closely paralleled combat training. Although mechanics are having to refurbish the worn-down helicopters, the pilots and support personnel seem up to snuff.

For other elements--logistics, infantry and military police--the units’ duties in Somalia and Haiti were virtually the same as they would be in combat. And commanders set up training sessions during both missions designed to help maintain combat skills.

As a result, Maj. Gen. David C. Meade, commanding officer of the 10th Mountain, argues that despite the fact that his troops couldn’t take their artillery to Haiti, they emerged from both Haiti and Somalia better trained than if they had remained at Ft. Drum.

“This is what they’ve dreamed about from a professional standpoint--going out on a mission where they could use the skills they’ve been trained to,” Meade said. “What they got in Haiti and Somalia was the kind of training and experience you couldn’t buy.”

Perhaps most surprising is that the division’s nearly nonstop deployments during the past three years appear to have resulted in only minimal strains on its troops. Although a few soldiers say they have had enough, re-enlistments are still exceeding Army targets.

Family counselors at Ft. Drum do report a rise in the incidence of divorce, juvenile problems and attempted suicides by spouses--which they concede is attributable in part to the string of recent deployments. But they say the increases are modest.

Not that the heavy deployment schedule has not taken some toll. Sgt. 1st Class Benny E. Hayes says he and his wife have separated since his return from Haiti in January. While there were other factors involved, he says, the series of deployments “didn’t help any.”

Kim Nichols, a civilian whose husband, William, is a sergeant in the division’s logistics brigade, confirms that the pressures are often difficult. “We’ve always had a strong marriage, but this past year has been a real strain,” she said.

And Sgt. David J. Goodin, who spent two tours in Somalia before being deployed to Haiti, says he too is tired of being on the road. “If I had to decide today, I’d get out just because of the deployments,” he said. But he added that he could still change his mind.

Younger soldiers, particularly those who are not married, are more likely to be enthusiastic about the pace of deployments. Specialist Paul S. McAllister, 22, says Somalia and Haiti were turning points for him. “What amazes me is, we’re making history,” he said.

Veteran infantry troops are less wide-eyed. “Sure, the deployments get old after a while, but that’s our business,” said Lt. Col. Russell S. Forshag, commander of the division’s aviation brigade.

David R. Segal, a University of Maryland sociologist who is studying the division, says such attitudes are typical. “It’s clear that there has been some wear and tear on the soldiers,” he said. “But it’s a fraying at the edges rather than any real destruction.”

In all the branches of service, officials have seen the warning signs on the horizon and are scrambling to ease conditions. The office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has just completed a crash study of the issue and is beginning to institute changes of its own.

Last month, the Pentagon ordered the 10th Mountain pulled back from Haiti several weeks ahead of schedule, largely to make sure that morale did not suffer and that the unit did not lose its combat edge.

The Air Force recently moved to limit the use of AWACS crews in some missions--and to increase the number of air controllers available for such duty--to help reduce the number of days that crew members are deployed overseas each year.

The Army has increased its promotion and re-enlistment incentives for Patriot missile crews and has begun retraining some infantrymen to relieve hard-hit military police units. In some areas, the Pentagon is hiring civilian contractors to take over security jobs.

Boorda has ordered admirals to rejuggle training procedures to enable the crews of most Navy surface ships to spend an extra 19 days at home between deployments, in order to stay within the six-month maximum for time away from port. “We’re going to keep working this problem,” he said.

And commanders such as the 10th Mountain’s Gen. Meade have begun pouring more resources and effort into programs designed to help families cope with more frequent deployments--by offering them more information and advice when troops are deployed.

Meade has also juggled vacation schedules to give troops more time to rest when they return. Soldiers returning to Ft. Drum from Haiti were given extended leave to settle personal affairs. And a training exercise at Ft. Polk, La., was put off until November.

Finally, at Perry’s request, all the services have begun exploring ways to use reservists more fully to help relieve active-duty personnel in some peacekeeping activities. This month, for example, the Army dispatched reservists to replace U.S. soldiers in the Sinai Desert.

The military also may get some relief from an unexpected source. The Republican-controlled Congress is pushing to limit the Administration’s ability to deploy troops as freely, and President Clinton himself is said to be less enthusiastic about such ventures.

Even so, analysts say the odds are that the United States will continue to use its forces actively. Pentagon strategists are already making contingency plans for sending 20,000 troops to Bosnia if it becomes necessary to evacuate U.N. peacekeeping troops.

And policy-makers have warned that the United States may be called upon to help provide peacekeeping troops for the Golan Heights if Israel and Syria reach a settlement later this year.

Many military experts say they believe that the services will continue to face frequent deployments for some time. Said Col. James Campbell, the 10th Mountain’s chief of staff: “We’re just deluding ourselves if we don’t realize that this is the Army of the future.”

Frederick F.Y. Pang, assistant secretary of defense for force management policy, told Dornan’s subcommittee last week that if the current pace continues unabated, the Defense Department ultimately may have to restructure the military to handle it.

“When we transitioned from the Cold War force to the post-Cold War force, we did not anticipate these demands,” Pang said.

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America’s Fast-Paced Armed Forces (Southland Edition, A22)

Recent major deployments of U.S. forces

DATE OPERATION MISSION 1991 March Provide Comfort Humanitarian aid to Iraqi Kurds (continuing today) May Sea Angel Humanitarian aid in Bangladesh (continued for one month) June Fiery Vigil Philippines vocanic eruption 1992 February Provide Hope Humanitarian relief to former Soviet Union May Sierra Leone Evacuation of Sierra Leone June Maritime Monitor Surveillance of shipping to the former Yugoslavia (continued for six months) July Provide Promise Airlift relief to Sarajevo (continuing today) August Provide Relief Airlift of relief supplies to Somalia August Southern Watch Enforce no-fly zone, south Iraq (continuing today) December Restore Hope U.S. relief mission in Somalia (continued for six months) December Maritime Guard Enforce U.N. trade embargo against former Yugoslavia (continued seven months) 1993 April Deny Flight NATO no-fly zone over Bosnia (continuing today) June Sharp Guard NATO blockade of Adriatic Sea (continuing today) July Able Sentry Observer mission in Macedonia (continuing today) October Support Democracy Naval blockade of Haiti (continued for 11 months) September Hurricane Andrew Aid following storm in Florida September Hurricane Iniki Aid following storm in Hawaii September Typhoon Omar Aid following storm in Guam 1994 May Sea Signal Interdict Haitian boat people (continued for four months) July Support Hope Relief mission in Rwanda (continued for two months) August Able Vigil Coast Guard interdiction of Cuban migrants off Florida (continuing today) September Restore Democracy Prepare for invasion of Haiti September Distant Haven Transport Haitian migrants to Suriname September Uphold Democracy U.S. occupation of Haiti (continuing today) September Safe Haven Move Haitian migrants to Panama October Vigilant Warrior U.S. intervention in Kuwait (continued for two months) 1995 February United Shield Evacuation of U.N. troops from Somalia

Source: U.S. Department of Defense