OPTEMPO and Military Life

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www.bringthemhomenow.com
OPTEMPO and Military Life
Stan Goff

Any military family member over the age of six can talk your ear off about the issues they face, the particular pressures that come with being bound to the service. Deployment makes these many times worse. One spouse is left to do all the work of keeping the family going while worrying about the safety of the absent loved one.

Even return from combat deployment produces new stresses. After the initial euphoria of homecoming, the changes each partner has gone through too often produces quarreling, domestic abuse, substance abuse, mental or emotional problems, and break-ups.

These problems get worse as the military's OPTEMPO increases.

Operational Tempo - A military term meaning "rate of usage" of troops and equipment. Acronym: OPTEMPO.

OPTEMPO is increased by increasing the number, the pace and the scope of operations in a given time. The United States Armed Forces by 2000 had already increased their OPTEMPO by more than 300% over 1991 by Department of Defense calculations. There has been no update of this statistic since the Bush administration launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a no-brainer, however, that the OPTEMPO has again increased dramatically.

New military personnel and their families may regard the current OPTEMPO as normal and even sustainable. It is not. Reserves have been extensively mobilized. Stop-loss programs hold troops on active duty beyond their projected ETS dates. And it is now apparent that 148,000 troops are not going to be adequate to maintain the occupation of Iraq without a continuing stream of US casualties.

An unsustainable OPTEMPO has one other long term consequence: Large numbers of troops will simply not re-enlist under these conditions. If large numbers of junior officers and junior NCOs decide to get out and stay out, it will create a serious disruption in continuity, degrading the overall proficiency and readiness of the force. This becomes an issue for senior military officials who have already questioned many of the changes implemented in the Department of Defense by Secretary Rumsfeld, who fancies himself a gifted military innovator, and who has developed a reputation of dismissive arrogance toward his generals (who actually have battlefield experience).

There is one sure way to reduce the OPTEMPO of today's US military, and the dire impact it is having on real troops and their families.

Bring the troops home now.
by Stan Goff
26 july 2003