What is the maximum number of tours of duty that a person/unit has served in Iraq/Afghanistan in last 8 yrs?

Question

Obama just made reference to troops serving 5 tours. Is this information correct?

Answer 1

I think I've heard of people serving 5 tours.  Generally in services with shorter tours of duty, and who volunteered to return for more.

Answer 2

Depends on the service branch and tour length.

For 12 month or 15 month tours,

There are some who have deployed 3 times for those.

They are on their 3rd tour now.

But the Air Force only deploys for 60 to 90 days, There are some airmen, who have deployed 6 to 8 times already.

Over 46% of the people in the military, have never deployed.

Another 25% have deployed just once.

Most soldiers will deploy , just once in their initial 4 year enlistment.

Of course, there are some soldiers who deployed twice and some marines who deployed 3 times.

But there are no service members, who have done 5separate, year long tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Marines will deploy twice in a four year enlistment.

Answer 3

Thats not very good way to phrase the question. IE Marines serve around 8 month tours. Air Force as little as 6 month tours, and Army up to 15+ month tours.

So Marines would have more tours than an Army person, however the Army guy and Marine would have around the same amount of months deployed.

So yes a Marine, or Air Force or Navy guy may have that many tours, but Army guys would have no more than 4 tours

hope that made sense

Answer 4

since 2002 a family member i know has gone over 6 times...

but he's at a rapid deploy unit and also pcs'ed to a new unit and deployed shortly after returning.

Answer 5

I personally know of a corpsman who has been deployed 4 times in the past 8 years. I know of many other men though that have easily gone 5.

Answer 6

I'm not sure about 5 but I have heard of people serving 4.