Casey: Afghanistan to be a 'long haul'

Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army's chief of staff, came to Fort Benning on April 21 to recognize the winners of the annual Best Ranger Competition, a pair of 24 year olds who have been deployed 11 times between the both of them.

Not surprisingly, Casey, who celebrated his first year on the job earlier this month, was asked about the number of deployments today's Soldier has faced and will face in the future.

"The Army is stretched thin," Casey said after posing for a picture with Best Rangers Staff Sgt. Michael Broussard and Staff Sgt. Shayne Cherry, instructors at the Regimental Special Troops Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment. "We're an Army at war and our Soldiers are remarkably resilient. But we have to increase the amount of dwell time. And we will, gradually."

Gone, he said, are the 15-month combat tours, like the one that Benning's 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team is about to finish in Iraq. That rule goes into effect Sept. 1.

But until the Army increases its size and adds more combat brigades, units such as the 3rd Brigade could be deployed again within a year.

Casey is well aware that Soldiers and their equipment need time to rest and recover after these long deployments.

"Folks coming out of combat need some time to get back -- this is hardly basics -- but need to get back to basic Soldiering kinds of things, and this competition is exactly the kind of thing that reinforces standards, physical fitness, and discipline in the force," Casey said of Best Ranger.

But, he added, he doesn't see an early end to the fighting in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

"We will definitely have to draw down in Iraq," he said. But he was reluctant to give a date, saying "the size of our force will come down when the Iraqi Army is capable of defending itself."

However, he sees no light at the end of the Afghanistan tunnel.

"We have a lot further to go there than in Iraq," he said. "We'll be there for the long haul."

One of Casey's main goals is to increase the size of the Army by 74,200 new Soldiers.

It won't be a goal easily met.

"Sure, it will be tough," he said. "Only three of 10 people are even qualified to serve." And he doesn't want to sacrifice quality for quantity.

"We will continue to recruit quality people," he told the crowd that had gathered to honor the Best Ranger finishers. "These men you see before you are symbols of the strength of our Army."

Where the Army is excelling is in retaining members of its current force, he said. "We had more than 300,000 re-enlist this past year even though we're entering our seventh year of war."

Retention of captains has been another story, however. Case in point: the number of West Point graduates leaving the military after their initial tours are at a 25-year high. Nearly half of the Class of 2001 has left active duty.

"I hear that question all the time," he said. "And the attrition rate isn't all that different than in other years. You need to be asking the captains that are staying, 'Why are you staying?' They still believe they can make a difference."

Casey, who visited Fort Benning soon after taking the Army's top job, was invited to the Benning ceremony by retired Lt. Gen. David E. Grange Jr., who is credited with starting the Best Ranger Competition.

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