Military Officer - November 2007 - (Page 55)

Q&A of a sudden it wasn’t funny anymore, because he wanted to be there, too. He’s been there twice since then. Does that attitude change on your second or third tour? Is it more difficult to sustain morale doing what they’ve done twice before? Yes and no. When you go back a second or a third time, you’re the old salt, the combat veteran. You’re the people other people turn to, to ask: “How do we get this done? What are the precedents here? What are the lessons learned?” You know, [so] you’re relied upon. How do multiple deployments strain families and Marines in ways typical Americans might not realize? It’s a timely question, because we just ﬁnished a tour to visit with Marine families. We were after that information. What are the stressors and strains? How can we help? PTSD is real. We are working hard to reduce the stigma associated with it within units and leadership and peer groups. If you’re going to deploy with a Marine unit, you’re going to be screened four different times for PTSD — before and after you deploy. We’re also ﬁnding that some children who have seen their father or mother go a third or fourth time are starting to need counseling. It needs to be explained to them why mommy or daddy is gone for so long. We are refurbishing family service programs to make use of best practices. Have questions from families changed as the Iraq war moves well into its fifth year? I anticipated they would, but with the exception of the need for counseling for families, they haven’t. Given the opportunity to talk with me about maybe some piercing issues, they wanted to discuss local issues like whether pets could be brought into certain billeting areas or promotion boards. My optimistic read on that is there aren’t large piercing issues. They aren’t asking, “Is Iraq worth what we’re sacrificing?” No. Families get it, just like their Marines and sailors get it. They believe their Marines are over there [in Iraq] ﬁghting terrorists. They believe G EN . JAM ES T. CONWAY Recruit quality is essential, because being a Marine means joining a force that is top-quality. in their hearts that the reason this country has not been attacked in the past six years is because of what our great young men and women are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. With Marines unable to train for other missions like amphibious operations, what’s happened to readiness? Units going to Iraq are absolutely ready. They’re all in category C1. Nobody goes unless they’re fully trained to execute their mission. There is a price to pay for that. Our gear is being ridden hard and put away wet. We see tremendous wear and tear in a seven-month deployment. It would take years in garrison to accrue that kind of wear. Fortunately, Congress has been very generous looking at what it costs to buy new “old stuff” or next-generation equipment. So reset monies are sufﬁcient at this point. We will have needs that transcend that, coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be a year or two to get it all back in battery. And when we provide everything guys in the ﬁght have to have, we strip away other capabilities. We have training sets in the States that are not full up with [the] equipment a battalion or a squadron might rate. The table of equipment needed when units cross the line is much expanded these days. A company used to rate maybe three vehicles. They now have 20 to 25 vehicles to be able to patrol. Troops have identiﬁed many more things to help them to live, work, and be successful in the environment they’re in. We try to get them whatever is the latest device to be able to accomplish the mission. But units in the States that are not on the step to go are suffering readiness to some degree because of equipment shortfalls. Battalions have, on average, half or a little less of what equipment might be full-up. How capable, then, is the Corps to respond to even a medium-size contingency, for example, to deploy for peacekeeping in East Timor? We still mount out Marine Expeditionary Units, one from each coast, on a rotating basis. We do have signiﬁcant response forces. For a major contingency, something above what you cited, it’s fair to say it would take us longer. The troops that would go to that ﬁght would be less ideally trained than, say, in 2002, before we got hotly engaged in Iraq. They would still be able to get the job done. How long would it take, if the war ended today, to restore your equipment inventory? Not long if you’ve got resources — and the lines are hot for some items we need. For armored vehicles, it might be a [CONTINUES ON PAGE 82] NOVEMBER 2007 MILITARY OFFICER 55

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Military Officer - November 2007

Military Officer - November 2007 Contents From the Editor President’s Page Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire Washington Scene Chapters in Action Financial Forum Ask the Doctor Cover Story: Commanding the Corps With Love, From Home Financial Guidebook Financial Tuneups Banking on Your Time Pages of History MOAA Scholarship Recipients Faces of MOAA MOAA Scholarship Donors Member Books Advertising Index MOAA Calendar Sounding Taps MOAA Member Services Encore

Military Officer - November 2007

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