New demands test troop stamina

One option would be to speed up the deployment of forces already scheduled for the next rotation into Iraq, such as the Army's second new Stryker brigade. But the Army is reluctant to hasten the return to Iraq of the 3rd Infantry Division, which is reorganizing, retraining, and refurbishing its equipment along with other units back from Iraq. That's part of a plan to create 43 to 48 modular Army brigades, along with plans to keep soldiers in units longer and reduce family moves - all of which would be disrupted by a large infusion of troops to Iraq.

Moreover, no one in the military is certain how multiple Iraq deployments will impact today's all-volunteer military, which has shrunk considerably since the cold war and relies heavily on reserve forces in times of war.

Anecdotal evidence, as well as military and independent surveys of service members and their spouses, suggest that a significant number of Iraq veterans like Syverson are deciding to leave the military rather than face the near-certain prospect of a second tour in Iraq or Afghanistan. So far US military retention figures have held up, with slippage mainly in Army Reserve and National Guard units.

The Army, especially, is watching to see "in the next year or two or three ... whether that door will open, and they will start to leave at a faster rate than they are today," Lt. Gen. Franklin Hagenback, in charge of Army personnel, told a recent hearing. "We don't have any indications at this point, and we're trying to track those trends," he said.

Specialist Timothy Monk, another 1st Armored Division infantryman retained in Iraq after being scheduled to leave Thursday, is one of those who has decided to exit the military. "He was extremely disappointed that he couldn't come home," says his mother, Vicky Monk, a Microsoft software tester from Sammamish, Wash. who spoke with her son over the weekend. "He felt that he had fulfilled his duty."

Mr. Monk had considered a military career. But after a year serving in Baghdad's Green Zone, and responding to violence such as the truck bomb that recently killed several Iraqi civilians at a gate there, he has had enough, she says. "After about two months in Iraq he said he'd changed his mind and he was not reenlisting because he did not want to be sent back to Iraq under any circumstances."

Sergeant Syverson and his brother, an experienced tank gunner, have both decided against their plan to serve 20 years, even though they are unsure about their civilian career prospects. "They are really worried about what they'll do, but reenlisting was not an option," says their father, Larry Syverson, of Richmond, Va., who is against the war although he has four sons who have served in the military.

The need for reinforcements in Iraq also vindicates to a degree the concerns of high-ranking US military officials who warned early on of the risks of the plan, favored by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, of experimenting with a relatively small occupation force in Iraq.

"Iraq was called the 'laboratory.' Well, the lab rats are getting really frisky," says one military source. "Enthusiasm got confused with capability and now the bill's come due," he says. "We're going to pay the bill, but there's a cost and the cost will be borne by soldiers."

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