Editorial: Deployment cycle reality

Editorial: Deployment cycle reality

For the past two years, the standard Air Expeditionary Force deployment cycle — four months deployed and 16 months at home — has been more wishful thinking than reality.

While pilots and other aircrew members may get in and get out in 120 days, close to half of all deploying airmen now go to the war zones for six months at a time. And many are spending less and less time at home.

Security forces, airfield operations officers, dieticians and enlisted network intelligence analysts, for example, typically deploy six months for every six months they’re at home.

The original AEF rotation was supposed to put airmen on a predictable, three-month cycle. But that system broke down almost immediately. The realities of war — and the Air Force role in Iraq and Afghanistan — forced the switch to a four-month cycle in 2004. But that broke down in 2006, when the number of “in-lieu-of” taskings increased dramatically. Airmen have deployed as needed ever since, and not in a transparent, predictable way.

The new “tempo-based” construct is designed to provide this predictability.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/community/opinion/airforce_editorial_deployment_052608/