在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
FORT DRUM, N.Y. — “It must feel great to be back in the States, right?” I get this question all the time from friends who haven’t seen me since I got back from Afghanistan last December.
It seems like a simple enough question. Yes, it’s great to be around all the things that you are deprived of in Afghanistan: women, alcohol, not having everything you own covered in dust and sand. But the truth is that after six months of recuperation and rest, I’m ready to go back. Needless to say, my friends have quite the look of incredulity on their faces when I say that.
Of course, I’m hardly a bellwether. Most soldiers, and especially their families, no doubt rejoiced at the announcement by the Army chief of staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, that after nearly a decade of continuous war, he would like to decrease deployment time to nine months while increasing dwell time at home to a minimum of 18 months.
Unlike other branches of the military — and many coalition armies with their six-month tours of duty — the Army has had to bear the burden of 12- and, for a time, 15-month combat tours.
Combine this with multiple deployments over the past 10 years, and you can appreciate the incredible amount of stress this has put on soldiers and their families. Given that, many would think that spending more time at home and less time deployed would be a wholly positive thing. And while in the long term that statement would be correct, in the short term it presents many challenges not otherwise apparent. And to some soldiers, it is actually an unwelcome change.
As with anything that is done with enough repetition, deploying and training on a set schedule (one year deployed and one year at home) becomes a habit. Do it for 10 years, and it becomes ingrained in the culture. A whole generation of officers, noncommissioned officers and senior enlisted soldiers has come of age in an era during which anything from three to seven deployments was the norm. It was just a given that you would spend a year overseas, regroup for a year at home and head back out again. The urgency was always there.
Now, amid the the unspoken sense that we are nearing the ends of our wars — particularly with the drawdown in Iraq and one farther down the line in Afghanistan –- one of the challenges is to maintain the same sense of urgency in training without the pressure of an impending deployment.
I’ve overheard soldiers gripe about how they think there won’t even be a war by the time we redeploy again, as if they are missing out. As leaders it is necessary to correct such notions on the spot, but the challenge remains to instill a sense of urgency in soldiers who may now have upwards of two years at home, and no idea of the likely mission when they do eventually deploy again.
It’s harder to keep a soldier focused on fighting a war when it isn’t staring him in the face, and the environment around him seems to be transforming back to a garrison army.
Additionally, a somewhat counterintuitive corollary is that the increase in time at home is surprisingly unwelcome for some. While very few soldiers will complain about the decrease in deployment time, some who volunteered during a time of war expect just that: to go and fight in the war. One unmistakable theme I noticed while deployed was that the sense of purpose was clear, the stakes were real, and, most importantly, everyone was doing his job, and trying their best to do it well. More time training stateside is seen by some as more time away from their “real job.”
While this mentality is not common, neither is it rare, particularly among younger soldiers and those without families. Ask any noncommissioned officer, or NCO, with a family and multiple deployments under his belt, and he will gladly take any additional time with his wife and kids without feeling that he is shirking his duty. But for these young, single, soldiers there are incentives associated with deploying often. Financially, soldiers can make and save a considerable amount of money while deployed. Some of the less financially savvy soldiers have even become dependent on the year on/year off cycle, saving their deployment money only to spend it all while at home and needing another deployment to get back in the black.
Younger soldiers may also have a chip on their shoulders. In an Army that has been at war for a decade, no one wants to be the one without a combat patch, or with just one deployment. The private who was in elementary school during 9/11 is likely to have an inferiority complex when facing an NCO who has done five combat tours.
Of course, most soldiers are perfectly happy with more time between deployments. The soldiers in need of money and respect — or in my case who just happen to find Afghanistan curiously delightful — will have to wait the few extra months to get their fix.
Because after a decade of hard work and sacrifice, the Army and its soldiers both need and deserve some time to catch their breath.
First Lt. Mark Larson is a platoon leader stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y., with the 10th Mountain Division. He served in Afghanistan in 2010. His previous posts for At War can be read here.
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