Sorry if this is a dupe, I couldn't "see" my other try at this post.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAoDiRgr8Ohg&refer=home
Gates Sets 15-Month Deployments for U.S. Army Troops (Update3)
By Judy Mathewson
April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said U.S. Army units would be deployed to Iraq for 15 months instead of 12 months, effective immediately.
The change applies to Army units already in Iraq and Afghanistan and those that will go there, Gates said at a news conference today at the Pentagon. Without extending tours of duty, the Army can't maintain 20 brigades in Iraq as President George W. Bush ordered last January and still give troops a year at home between deployments, he said.
``Our forces are stretched, there's no question about that,'' Gates said, while rejecting suggestions that the Army is broken as a result of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The shift, which doesn't apply to the Marine Corps, comes as 73 percent of Americans said Bush's plan for Iraq has made the situation there worse or has had no effect on the country's stability, according to a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll.
...I wonder when incidents of small or wholesale breakdown of military discipline might occur, as a result of simply leaning on people too hard.