New Army Policy Limits Overseas Duty

A new Army policy that limits overseas duty to six months for members of the National Guard and Reserve also will apply to active duty soldiers, a spokesman said Sunday.

Reservists currently are deployed abroad for up to nine months - the maximum allowed by federal law. Active duty units normally rotate after six months, but the service has set no official time limit until now.

Spokesman Col. Edwin Veiga said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki will formally disclose the policy Tuesday at a change-of-command ceremony in Bosnia, where the 49th Armored Division of the Texas National Guard will take command of U.S. peacekeeping operations from the 10th Mountain Division, an active duty unit.

To underscore the significance of the new policy for the Army’s reservists, Maj. Gen. Roger Schultz, director of the Army National Guard, and Maj. Gen. Thomas Plewes, chief of the Army Reserve, will join Shinseki for the announcement, Veiga said.

Limiting overseas duty to six months is meant to ease the burden of long deployments on soldiers, their families and, in the case of guardsmen and reservists, their regular employers. Since the end of the Cold War, as the active-duty force has shrunk by more than a third, the National Guard and Reserve have been called upon more regularly to support not only combat operations but also peacekeeping.

The Army’s six-month limit on overseas deployments will apply only to missions other than war, Veiga said. In the event of war, the Army could keep National Guard and Reserve units overseas for up to nine months.