Should the Army decrease the length of deployments?

Very well said.

BOOM, great answer and back in 2003 Iraq we had fences, NOT walls, then later in 06, we had HUGE tall walls isolating us from the populace we were there to protect. Same here in Afghanistan now.

1LT William Clardy I'm curious as to whether we could sustain ourselves as in WW1/WW2. They didn't go on deployment, but went to the war for the duration.

Just watched the series "Our World War" done by the BBC about 3 key points in WW1 for the British Army. The first episode was the Battle of Mons, the first battle for the British in 1914. At the end of the episode told how one of the survivors went on to fight 4 more years in the trenches! Different times.

SCPO (Join to see) - I have wondered that same thing.

I think that our troops can be just as resilient as prior generations were when sent forth "for the duration", SCPO (Join to see).
That said, the truth is that prior generations weren't as stoically resilient as most folks think (check out Roger Spiller's classic article in Military Review, "Isen's Run: human dimensions of warfare in the 20th century", in the PDF linked to below).

http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getdownloaditem/collection/p124201coll1/id/516/filename/517.pdf/mapsto/pdf/type/singleitem

SSgt (Join to see) - Cool. I've heard what you mentioned, but in the cases I've had to deal with, it wasn't really that easy to extend them. Justification after Justification, then the whole pot of money thing, and in the end, in my last unit, as far as AD and NG/RC, there were more of NG/RC than AD NCO's. AD PCS'd leaving the rest to pick up a LOT of slack until they were spun up and in cyber that can take a long itme.

SSG Warren Swan - When my BN HQs mobilized in 2003, our orders were for 365 but not to exceed 720. So that permitted the Army to keep us for up to 2 years. Mine only ended up being a year but some others in our HQs were extended once we realized that major combat operations were not over.

SSG Warren Swan - I tried extending 3 times. I still probably would have fallen within the 400 day window because we were sent home early, bit got denied. You're right, that states don't seem to like us extending, or doing anything outside what the unit as a whole does.

SSgt (Join to see) - COL Jon Thompson, after my last unit, the differences between the AD/NG/RC were mind boggling when you're trying to work a system you've never had to deal with. Learning about what title to use, when you can use it, the max time it can be used, it's a bit frustrating on all sides. No one regardless of compo likes not knowing what will happen when something comes up. Ours were renting homes, apartments, whatever, and those contracts never lined up with their orders. I think the Army should have a class on the different compos, what they can and cannot do, can they be extended and what title(s) are to be used. I think it would be best taught to the seniors and let it trickle down to the joes. It really was an eye opener. And God bless you if you wanted to get out of the NG and come back AD. I know the Army as a whole understands each other, but it's the "small" details that bite us. To make it worse, I had a better time with the NG/RC Soldiers. They're recalled from civilian jobs that are almost the same as what they're in uniform doing it, They bring experience and more technical knowledge that many AD folks will never get, and normally they'd share or lead SGT's Time training. I've bitched about the other compos, being some of them sucked, but the ones I dealt with here in the states were deadly with a keyboard and strong coffee.