Conway: 2-front war will overstretch Corps

[unhappycamper]

Stretched thin
Reduced deployment-to-dwell-time ratio eyed.


Conway: 2-front war will overstretch Corps
By Kimberly Johnson - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Feb 2, 2008 15:00:01 EST

The Marine Corps cannot endure a long-term presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the service’s top officer said.

Service commitments in Iraq have stretched Marines’ deployment-to-dwell-time ratio to about equal time, a metric Commandant Gen. James Conway has long said he wants to improve to take on more expeditionary training and increase Marines’ time with families.

“We cannot sustain 1-to-1 forever, and our Corps is not big enough to do both,” he told reporters in Washington on Feb. 1. “We can’t have one foot in Afghanistan and one foot in Iraq. I believe that would be — an analogy would be having one foot in the canoe and one foot on the bank. You can’t be there long.”

The strains from Iraq commitments are creating effects on the careers of Marines, he said.

“We are not doing that kind of multi-capable training that we historically do in order to be that swing force and arguably the first to fight,” Conway said.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/marine_conway_080202/