Best Defense

Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

BD comment of the day: Yep, my buddies are turning down battalion command

In response to my request yesterday (in the Dubik item about cracks in the Army) for more information on declination of command, I got this note from a smart officer I knew in Iraq: I don’t have any hard stats for you, but at least 4 relatively close friends of mine have declined battalion command. ...

In response to my request yesterday (in the Dubik item about cracks in the Army) for more information on declination of command, I got this note from a smart officer I knew in Iraq:

In response to my request yesterday (in the Dubik item about cracks in the Army) for more information on declination of command, I got this note from a smart officer I knew in Iraq:

I don’t have any hard stats for you, but at least 4 relatively close friends of mine have declined battalion command. I believe all were due to the cumulative and anticipated stress on their families. Most officers I know seem willing to do two or three tours; but somewhere at two years or more deployed, the pressure from being a non-participant in family life leads to some very hard choices between duty to the nation and duty to the family. Not that it is necessarily our job, but it’s not easy to run the world with 10 Army divisions and the Marine Corps.

Tom: This is of more than just passing interest. There is more than one way to break a military. That is, it won’t just be like the post-Vietnam era, with indiscipline in the ranks and disgusted NCOs punching out early. Instead, it might be things like wives insisting that their field grade husbands leave — or, in this case, lieutenant colonels turning down battalion command. I would love to see some numbers on this trend.  

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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