Multiple tours more common, deadly

BY GRAHAM RAYMAN | Newsday Staff Writer

January 21, 2007

Last March, Marine Sgt. Julian Arechaga came to a crossroads in his young life.

The 23-year-old Baldwin native already had been a team leader in a platoon that spent months in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2004 in search of al-Qaida and Taliban members. In 2005, he served as a squad leader in Fallujah, Iraq -- a city torn apart by firefights, car bombings and roadside explosions.

Arechaga, then at Camp Lejeune, N.C., could have walked away from the Marines when his enlistment was up. He spoke of returning to Long Island, becoming a police officer, going to college. But his squad was set to go once again to Iraq, and he was worried about whether they were ready, especially the newest ones.

"I don't think he felt confident that the unit was up to standards," said Justin Slep, 23, a former Marine who served in two deployments alongside Arechaga. "He didn't feel comfortable leaving his Marines. So he extended voluntarily."

On Oct. 9, just a few weeks into his third deployment, the man who survived firefights on the Afghan steppe and dragged wounded civilians off an Iraqi street shrouded in flames and humming with gunfire was killed by that most random of weapons -- a roadside bomb.

As the war in Iraq nears the four-year mark, the stories of Americans like Arechaga returning to combat for second and third tours have become commonplace. One of every three GIs deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan has served more than one tour -- a higher percentage than at any time since the Vietnam era.

Nearly 800 Americans have died while serving at least a second tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, more than 25 percent of the total U.S. casualties, Pentagon figures show. Arechaga was one of 118 who died while serving a third.

And with President George W. Bush's call for 21,000 more troops in Iraq, the number of GIs serving at least three tours is sure to increase, experts say.

"I'd say it's near certain that this troop increase will cause additional Army and Marine Corps units to also undergo three [or more] deployments," said MacKenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation who has written about Iraq troop deployments.

Many, like Arechaga, voluntarily extended their service or re-enlisted, while others returned with units during their regular enlistment. The 3rd Infantry Division in Georgia is about to deploy on its record third tour, said Eaglen.

Stayed in to go to school

Marine Sgt. Elisha Parker, a combat engineer from tiny Camden in upstate New York, was 21 when he died on May 4 on his third Iraq deployment. His family said Parker and another Marine were clearing a road with a mine sweeper when they detected a buried bomb. As they moved back, the bomb was detonated by remote.

Parker, who signed up while still in high school, could have avoided the third deployment. His contract was about to expire. Instead, considering a career in the Marines, he decided to extend the contract so he could go to a school for combat engineers. He knew it could mean another deployment.

"He would have served his commitment by July of 2006, but going to the school extended it," said his mother, Donna Parker.

On Christmas leave in December 2005, Parker got back together with his girlfriend and told his family that he had decided to return to civilian life after his current commitment, his mother said. By then, he had been given a squad to train, and he already knew that he was going back.

Repeat tours are fueled by several factors. The available pool of soldiers has shrunk with the end of the draft and the cutback in troops in the nation's standing army -- from 2.1 million to 1.4 million in the wake of the Cold War's end in the 1980s.

"The crucial difference is that in Vietnam, you were using draftees," said John Gates, a retired history professor at the College of Wooster in Ohio and expert on the Vietnam War. "Now, you're using volunteers who are in for the duration, and they obviously keep being sent back. It's a manpower problem."

Paul Rieckhoff, director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said multiple deployments have had a profound effect on service-members, their families and the health of the military.

"In the history of the volunteer army, you've never had this kind of pace," said Rieckhoff, a former national guardsman and author of an Iraq War memoir. "Unlike Vietnam, there's this feeling that you're never entirely out. The overall pool of people hasn't increased, but you keep increasing the demand."

Indeed, Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker on Dec. 14 warned that the active-duty force "will break" under the strain unless the military is expanded.