Get Judy on the line; tell her to reschedule my 5 o’clock, I’m already booked solid
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
After the last of the five “surge” brigades goes home this summer, the U.S. Army will have 13 brigade combat teams in Iraq (the Marines have two more) and two in Afghanistan. One BCT serves as a “global response force,” ready to respond to a small-scale emergency elsewhere in the world. One is in Korea. One is dedicated to homeland defense and security. One, at a base in Fort Riley, Kan., is training soldiers to become advisers to Iraqi and Afghan security forces. That adds up to 19 BCTs. All the other Army brigades are either between deployments or in their 12-month downtime periods, having fulfilled their 12-to-15-month deployment tours. (For a little more detail on these numbers, click here.)
And that’s it. There are no more combat brigades left.
Photo courtesy annibee at Flickr.