The Change Mariner

The New Military:Reserve troops face long hitch

TimesHerald:
Though the 358th reservists are eligible for a 15-day rest and recreation break, they are required to spend at least a full year in Iraq. At least one 358th officer, who asked not to be identified, said a long deployment wasn't what she and others had anticipated.
"We didn't sign up for two weeks off and the rest of the year deployed," the officer said. "We have jobs that we need to get back to."
In the past, Army reservist typically spent about one weekend a month training locally in a chosen occupational specialty. Weekend duty included classroom and physical fitness training, and during the summer there was a two-week training requirement.
Since the Iraq war, all that is changing. In 2004, U.S. National Guard and military reserve units will take on more of the combat burden in Iraq, according to Associated Press, replacing some army troops with a smaller, lighter and more mobile force equipped with fewer tanks and more armored Humvees and other light infantry vehicles.
The Department of Defense's transformation initiative envisions lighter, nimbler forces with service branches working jointly on missions. In the future, troops should be able to mobilize quicker and arrive at their overseas deployments in a matter of days.
Currently, there are 130,000 troops serving in Iraq - about 20 are reserve forces. Next year's troop rotation is scheduled to take place between January and April.
By April, nearly 40 percent of the 105,000 troops in the fresh force will be National Guard and reservists. Also, the U.S. Marines plan to use about 6,000 of their citizen-soldiers in the switch-out.
U.S. forces in Iraq are already traveling lighter these days, trading firepower for mobility, many armored divisions having traded many of their Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles for Humvees.
A contingent of 5,000 soldiers in a combat team called the Stryker Brigade, from Fort Lewis, Wash., has been training in Kuwait since October in preparation for duty in Iraq. The unit's Stryker vehicle, which is half the weight of a tank, will debut sometime in 2004.