I would agree, tour extensions aren't new-they happened to my husband and other family members in the service, but they do create a stress on the family.

I think the military at the very least should make a commitment of moving men and women in and out of the war zone on time. There may be a few times when extensions are neccessary, but they should be the exception and not the rule.

Of course, people seem to want to be lied to these days when it comes to the real cost of almost anything, whether it be health care, social security, or killed or maimed young men and women. Free lunches are still just an imaginery metaphor, though our "leaders" never stop serving them up and the populace as a whole keeps pretending they are both nutritous and filling.

If you accept that there is a price to be paid in men and materiel to achieve your goals, does it matter whether the butcher's bill comes in minutes or days? Or weeks? Similarly, does it matter how quickly the information is distributed if you have a zero tolerance level for bloody casualties?

Yes and no about the easier job. If the guerrillas have the easier job it is likely that means they have the initiative (picking when and where to fight). If the counter insurgency force is doing the job right, the the insurgency will feel always hunted and never able to catch its breath with out the counter insurgency breathing down its throat.

Sure. But blowing up some people every now and again is probably a lot less of an emotional drain than risking getting blown up on a daily basis. The guerrillas always have the easier job.

Phil hasn't missed that point, nor have I. Indeed, the emphasis on the personal comms issue is mine.

Still, it's an interesting complicating factor. YAJ is right:

Maybe the issue is that one of the legacies of Vietnam was the concept of a ‘tour of duty’, as opposed to staying until the job is done.

I've made that point before as well.

That's not to say that the opstempo isn't ridiculously high, by any means. I've been arguing since the early 1990s that it is.

Anderson is right, too:

As it is, we’ve betrayed the contract with our reservists — they’d be there for “the big one,” and we’d call them up for same.

That, too, is a point I've made repeatedly over the years. I'd argue the GWOT or Long War or whatever is closer to that than the Clinton adventures but Iraq COIN is not. (I think Iraq buttresses the GWOT but isn't the GWOT.)

When one actually writes a letter, it takes time, it takes reflection. You face limitations of space and/or cost (though those are not rigid, unless one uses air letters). You also face limitations of time and place as letter-writing isn't usually done on the hop, but in a fixed place at a quiet time. (Again, this isn't rigid, just the norm.)

E-mail now can be sent anytime, any place, from your cell phone or a wi-fi enabled laptop. There are no structural limits on the sending.

E-mail also tends to include far more of the banal than do written letters. They are quick, off-the-cuff, open to every passing bitch and moan. And, of course, e-mail suffers from the same lack of context that causes flame wars through lack of context.

VoIP, likewise, is utterly different from the cassette tapes that were widely used during Vietnam and later wars. Again, they can bring the immediate, though trivial, right to the ear of a soldier who has other things on his/her mind.

I don't see restricting soldiers' ability to receive either e-mail or phone calls as do-able. Instead, the military needs to do a bit more work with families to help them understand the full consequences of modern conveniences. The message should be along the lines of 'If it's not urgent, don't bother your soldier with it; S/he's got more important things to bother with, like staying alive.'

The result would be that certain privileged rear-area folks would still get to e-mail, whereas the unwashed frontliners wouldn't. That would also be bad for morale.

The broader point about the Reserves is one I've been echoing for ages. It's monstrous that we are conducting a couple of occupations on the backs of the Reserves.

If we *want* to be an imperial, occupying power, then we need to recruit an army to suit -- raising pay & incentives as much as needed for an all-volunteer force, or else (less preferably) drafting the necessary troops.

As it is, we've betrayed the contract with our reservists -- they'd be there for "the big one," and we'd call them up for same. Instead, they've been called up for a political war in Iraq, which a cowardly President insists on fighting without spreading its human costs amongst the population at large.

yea, you tell 'em Triumph

The real culprits are the liberals like Nancy Pelosi who have done everything in their power to weaken the military and help the evildoers.

If it weren't for liberals, this whole situation would be fine.

Maybe the issue is that one of the legacies of Vietnam was the concept of a 'tour of duty', as opposed to staying until the job is done.

Me too.

My husband was in the Navy during the early to mid 90's. Towards the end of his service, air craft carriers and some of the other larger ships were just starting to get email capable. When he would deploy on his ship, mail was generally 2-4 weeks behind, and a lot of mail I sent to him or he sent to me would arrive after he had gotten home.

I do think he has a point about the strain on families, and how todays service members is more likely to be married and with children than in many previous wars. One of the reasons we had already decided my husband wasn't going to re enlist for another 4 year hitch, was because of the strain the deployments put on our family, and that was during peace time.

I am not sure there is a lot you can do for this, other than make sure units rotate in and out of theater on schedule, and providing more support to families left behind.

I think restructuring the military's reserve and active duty units is probably in order and has been since the 1990's when the nature of how we fight wars changed.