15-month Iraq tours test soldiers and families

Typography

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A year into his 15-month tour on the streets of Baghdad, the tough part for U.S. Army Specialist Jason Ellis was going home on leave to see his 18-month-old boy.

By Peter Graff

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A year into his 15-month tour on the streets of Baghdad, the tough part for U.S. Army Specialist Jason Ellis was going home on leave to see his 18-month-old boy.

"Scary. I'd been gone for so long. You wonder if they're going to forget about you," said the 22-year-old soldier at the Spartan former Iraqi police station in west Baghdad that has been home to his B Company, 1st Battalion, 64th Armoured.

When Ellis went home on leave to Austin, Texas, little Brian was walking and talking. Ellis said he even appeared to remember his dad.

!ADVERTISEMENT!

"You've got two weeks of leave. You try to squeeze 15 months into that two weeks," Ellis said. "Missing the early childhood, it's not easy. I'm never going to get that time back."

U.S. President George W. Bush announced this week that he will scale the length of army tours at war back down to a year from the 15-month duration imposed last year to provide extra manpower for the "surge" of troops in Iraq.

Soldiers in Iraq, especially those with young families back home, say the extra three months have been a heavy burden.

Commanders acknowledge that the extra time in theatre is placing strain on the force, especially on those soldiers with young families back home, at a time when the Army is worried about the impact of combat stress on its troops.

A Pentagon report released last month showed that stress becomes a bigger problem among soldiers sent for repeat tours. In a survey of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan last year about 18 percent had mental health problems, rising to more than a quarter of those on third or fourth tours.

That report focused more on the impact of frequent deployments than of long ones; 15 months became the standard only last April, and the impact may take time to assess.

In Ellis's battalion, more than half of the soldiers are on their second tour and about five percent are on their third. Soldiers said it is the length of the tour that gets them down.

"MAN, I WISH I WAS HOME"

"You have those days where you sit there and feel depressed, like, 'Man I wish I was home now' -- where that's all you think about," said Specialist Timothy Anderson. "I'm used to it now."

Like many of the units that came to Iraq during the "surge" last year, B Company arrived at a period of intense violence that has partly tapered off.

Within a few weeks of the company's arrival last June, four of the company's men were killed and one was very seriously wounded by a roadside bomb that destroyed an armored vehicle as they fought their way into the Jamia neighborhood, then a stronghold of al Qaeda Sunni Arab militants.

Today, the area is remarkably quiet. Businesses have reopened, local Sunnis recruited into a U.S.-funded neighborhood watch program are now joining the Iraqi police force and U.S. soldiers are able to enter shops and chat.

Sergeant Jeff Pottratz said when the company arrived the area was dangerous and held by insurgents. "Al Qaeda controlled Jamia. We fought for about two months, then we won," he said.

He has been in Iraq for 11 months and has four months to go. His twin boys just celebrated their first birthday with their mother back home in Iowa. When he saw them on leave, one was walking already, the other was still learning how.

"If it was 12 months, we'd probably be getting ready to hand over the sector and go home. Instead we're still here," he said.

"Everybody's got their little stories about sacrificing the home front. But you can touch the good things we've done. That makes it better."

(Editing by Peter Millership)