| Part of Series | War in the First Person |
| Length | 58:59 |
| Licensor | Open Source |
| Producer(s) | Open Source |
| Formats | Interview, Limited Series |
| Topics | Business, Family, War |
| Produced | May 31, 2007 |
| Added to PRX | June 28, 2007 |
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Two Marines talk about deploying again to Iraq.
http://www.radioopensource.org/deploying-again/
English
We?ve been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for longer than we fought in WWII, without a draft or any national call to serve. While the political fight over withdrawal continues in Washington, the reality for now is that President Bush?s 21,000-troop surge is underway ? and it?s clear that the military is too small to sustain its current troop levels easily in a protracted ground war.
The result is that many servicemen and women are now in their third or fourth (or even sixth) tours of duty. And for some those tours are getting longer: last month, the Army extended them from 12 to 15 months.
The military is also boosting its numbers through the ?backdoor draft.? This became an issue barely a year after the start of the Iraq war when the Army announced sweeping use of stop-loss policies. (Stop-loss forces troops to finish tours with their units even if their individual service commitments would otherwise end mid-way through.) Another part of the ?backdoor draft? involves recalls from the Individual Ready Reserve ? soldiers and Marines who are no longer on active duty. The Army has been using its IRR for several years; and the Marine Corps recently announced its biggest call back to active duty since the early days of the Iraq war.
The weight of the war falls on servicemen and women (and their families) who have to cope with multiple and extended deployments. We asked two Marine Corps officers about what it takes to serve repeatedly in Iraq. One just finished Harvard Business School and will soon deploy for his third tour. The other was slated to start Harvard Business School in September but will instead be serving in Iraq in his fourth tour. We asked how the draw of leadership ? being led and leading others ? affects their willingness to return. And how that experience carries over to civilian life and the business world later on.
