Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had just a few words regarding the new rules requiring members of the military to be able to deploy or get out.
Military readiness has been a topic over the last few years. Deservedly so as many members are being deployed multiple times, and as the military changes and adapts to a more sophisticated fighting force.
After the Department of Defense (DoD) released it’s new ‘deploy or get out’ policy, Mattis said:
“You’re either deployable, or you need to find something else to do. I’m not going have some people deploying constantly and then other people, who seem to not pay that price, in the U.S. military.”
“This new policy is a 12-month deploy or be removed policy,” Robert Wilkie, the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told a Senate panel Wednesday. “However, there are exceptions.”
“The situation we face today is really unlike anything we have faced, certainly in the post-World War II era,” Wilkie told the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on personnel and readiness. “On any given day, about 13 to 14 percent of the force is medically unable to deploy. That comes out to be about 286,000 [service members].”
In discussing having healthy warfighters continue to carry the load, Mattis said, “They need time at home, they need time with their families. We may enlist soldiers, but we re-enlist families. That’s the way it is. If you can’t keep the family together, then you’re either going to lose the family or you’re going to lose the soldier, and that’s a net loss for our society and for our military.”