The Army’s new chief of staff, Gen. George Casey (of Iraq fame), has said he can’t guarantee that deployments won’t grow beyond the current 15 months. Casey was asked about the extensions by a frustrated Army wife who said her husband’s deployments have more than doubled in length over the years.

The general has said he wants to expedite an expansion of the Army to address the problem: “We live in a difficult period for the Army because the demand for our forces exceeds the supply.”

AP via Yahoo:

A woman in the group asked Casey if her husband’s deployments would stop getting longer. She said they used to last for six months in the 1990s but then started lasting nine months and 12 months. Two weeks ago, she heard the Army’s announcement that deployments would be extended as long as 15 months.

“Do you honestly foresee this spiral, in effect, stopping?” she asked.

Casey said the Army wants to keep deployments to 15 months, but “I cannot look at you in the eye and guarantee that it would not go beyond.”

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