More Airtime

Three months is not much time to learn to do a job, especially when it's in Iraq or Afghanistan. That's one reason why the Air Force decided in June to extend deployments for airmen from 90 to 120 days. The longer tours also are a sign that the Air Force, like the other military services, is struggling to field troops for missions ranging from air patrols over Iraq to security for domestic military bases.

"Simply put, the demands on our forces have not diminished and are not expected to diminish any time soon," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper wrote in a June 4 message to airmen announcing the new deployment schedule. Beginning next month, airmen will be deployed four out of every 20 months, he said.

"This is a reaction to increased operational tempo. When a war's under way, all bets are off," says Clark Murdock, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

All the military services have been searching for ways to manage personnel and equipment both at home and on war fronts in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans. The Army has relied heavily on its reserve components. The Navy is experimenting with shorter but more frequent sea tours. Marines who invaded Iraq in spring 2003 already have been sent back there to keep the peace. The Air Force is the latest service fine-tuning its deployment management.

In the late 1990s, Air Force leaders reconfigured the service into prepackaged combat units to provide more regular deployment, training and maintenance schedules for airmen and aircraft worn out by continuous post-Cold War operations. The 10 fighting groups, known as Air Expeditionary Forces, have about 12,600 airmen and a full complement of fighter, cargo and refueling aircraft. The AEF units were designed to deploy three out of every 15 months and spend the rest of the time either training or preparing for operations.

The schedule worked well until U.S. forces invaded Iraq and the Air Force ended up deploying the better part of eight AEF units. The service then created two 120-day AEF units from its remaining forces to bridge the gap from open-ended wartime deployments back to 90-day rotations. But as it turned out, the 120-day deployments proved popular with commanders.

Air Force Maj. Gen. (Select) Anthony Przybyslawski, commander of the AEF center at Langley Air Force Base, Va., says battlefield commanders prefer 120-day rotations because the longer troops are deployed, the more experience they gain. He says commanders have complained that 90-day deployments barely give troops enough time to learn their missions.

Additionally, Przybyslawski says, the Air Force will save money by only rotating forces three times annually as opposed to four. He does not expect a backlash from airmen over being deployed an extra month, he says, because under the 20-month cycle they gain four more months at home. He says the service never guaranteed 90-day deployments indefinitely, but has delivered on the promise of a predictable schedule.

Members of the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard initially raised concerns about the extended schedule. Under the old schedule, the Air Force allowed reservists to fulfill their requirements by splitting deployments into shifts of between 15 and 45 days.

The Air Force wavered on allowing split shifts under the new plan. The service ultimately decided, however, to allow reservists to serve four 30-day shifts. Reserve leaders had said that longer deployments would hurt recruiting and retention among already overtaxed volunteers. About half of the 20,000 airmen deployed around the globe are Air Force reservists or Air Guard personnel.

F. Whitten Peters, who helped craft the original AEF schedule as Air Force secretary under President Clinton, says the 90-day deployment schedule was "never written in stone" and the service expected it would change during wartime. He says the new rotation could benefit airmen by giving them more training time and would allow more time for aircraft repairs and overhauls.