What percentage of the US active duty military would you say has deployed to the middle east?

Question

What percentage of the US active duty military would you say has deployed to the middle east?

Answer 1

I'm surprised at the above number.  I'm at a CONUS strategic MI unit that doesn't deploy and still, at least 60% of us have deployed.  I guess that's why Gates is riding the Air Force to contribute more.

Answer 2

~1,500,000 active duty in the US military, deployed in iraq ~160,000, so roughly 10% at the moment, but around 30% have cycled through

Answer 3

im going with around 45...there are a lot of people who will not go..im glad they are making it harder in the air force to stay on the undeployable list...because its not fair to everyone else

Answer 4

30% ... thats a straight up guess , but i think that would be a close number , i dont see it being much more ... are you interested in both Iraq and Afghanistan or just iraq (mid east)?

Answer 5

This is from the Army Times:

An estimated 33.4 percent of soldiers in the active component have never deployed but are in units with deployment orders, or are not deployable because they are at basic training, graduate school or other Army training; have medical or legal issues that keep them out of rotation; are serving as instructors, recruiters or drill sergeants; or are in transit or otherwise on hold.

I would have thought the Army numbers to be higher than 67% but I'm in the Infantry and there are very few of us without combat patches.

I would think the Marine Corps rate for deployment is higher since they are a smaller force.  I have no idea what the Air Force and Navy deployment rates are - I would guess less than the Army.

Answer 6

Well, first you have to factor in the enormous number of mercenary, Black Water buggers that have no loyalty what so ever other than to the formerly all mighty buck. Then you simply subtract the people needed to deal with domestic emergencies of late, and add that to the sum total of people needed here rather than in some God forsaken muslim h**l hole  and you will likely arrive at some semblance of an honest figure! If you cannot understand this without invoking the ghost of Sam Kinison then you remain forever damned.