On his fourth tour downrange, soldier would like to see system tweaked

[unhappycamper]

On his fourth tour downrange, soldier would like to see system tweaked
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, December 16, 2007

After his third deployment, Sgt. 1st Class Charles Tingle started to think maybe he had done his bit for the global war on terror.

He had bivouacked in Afghanistan. “We lived like animals pretty much,” he said.

He had invaded Iraq. “We never stopped rolling,” said Tingle, a mechanic. “Just not sleeping for a year, always having eyes in the back of your head.”

He had spent thousands of hours on convoys, fixed who-knows-how-many broken vehicles and, although not part of his job description, worked a nightmarish job with mortuary affairs. “Part of my life I’ll never talk about,” he said.

His grandfather died during Tingle’s first Iraq tour — he heard the news three weeks later. His wife’s parents both died on another. “They let me go on leave for 10 days,” he said. “I didn’t make it to the funeral, of course, because it took me three days to get home.”


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51022



uhc comment: Interesting stats in side box:

Army deployment figures

Of 515,000 active-duty soldiers:

* 200,000 (39%) have one combat tour.
* 70,000 (15.6%) have two tours.
* 15,000 (3%) have three or more tours.