General Defends 15-Month Tours

[unhappycamper]

General Defends 15-Month Tours
April 15, 2008
Baltimore Sun

KABUL, Afghanistan -- As the Bush administration moves to end 15-month troop deployments, the top commander of U.S. and allied forces here said tours of that length are critical to making progress in the war against Afghanistan's Taliban and other insurgents. He also said he believes it will be necessary to maintain current troop levels here through 2011.

Army Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the four-star commander of the 57,000 U.S. and coalition troops fighting in Afghanistan, said in an interview April 13 that the greatest gains in the war have come from Soldiers serving the long tours.

"It's not something I advocate we stay on forever," McNeill said. "We've got to ease up on the force a little bit. It's especially an issue for the families."

But he said the most successful units have been U.S. Army troops who have "established relationships with the terrain, with the indigenous people and with the enemy, and have had a good amount of time to exploit those relationships and use them to their advantage."

None of the other 39 troop-contributing nations send their troops for 15 months. Many serve for six months and some as little as four months.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/general-defends-15month-tours.html