Troops to serve year in Iraq

All troops in Iraq should expect to serve for at least a year, with brief rest breaks in the region and possibly a few days at home, the commander of U.S. forces said Tuesday. That came as news to some soldiers.

"It's a one-year rotation," Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told The Associated Press in an interview. "Every soldier has been told that they'll be deployed for a year, and then at the end of the year we'll be working to send them home."

But some of the 148,000 soldiers in Iraq said nobody told them how long they would remain in the country, where guerrillas attack Americans daily and high temperatures often top 120 degrees.

Pfc. Deacon Finkle, 20, of Dallas, screwed up his face -- red from the heat -- when asked how long he would be in Iraq.

"Don't know. No idea," he said.

Cindy Mingus of Cape Girardeau, whose husband, Paul, is an Army Reserve sergeant with the 389th Engineer Battalion, said she and Paul have been bracing for the worst.

"Well, the orders were for a year when they left, so we knew he could potentially be there for a year," she said. "Have they said anything in the last few days? I don't know. He didn't say anything. Paul doesn't really listen to anything. If somebody says they heard a rumor they're going to be going home in October, he doesn't listen to that. When they tell him to start packing his bags, he knows he'll be leaving."

Tina Plaskie, whose husband, John, is with the 348th Engineers of Cape Girardeau, said she is still hoping for an earlier release.

"We have been told March next year, which will be a year, but we've also been told that the missions they were working on are mostly completed," she said. "There may be more missions, but we're still hoping for October or November."

'Going to be rough'

Spc. Jeff Ross, perched atop a bridge overlooking Baghdad's dangerous Airport Highway, knew he was scheduled to be in Iraq for a year, saying: "We really don't have a choice."

"A year's going to be rough. It's going to be a long haul," said Ross, 22, of Hillsboro, Ore. "But I think we can do it. If it cools off a little bit, it'll be all right."

The issue of soldiers' tours has been contentious, with troops and their families posting missives on the Internet criticizing their government for keeping U.S. forces in Iraq.

Some express concern about "mission creep," in which what begins as a swift war turns into a long-term occupation that could cause heavy American casualties as Iraqis become more and more skeptical of U.S. promises to let them govern themselves.

"They need to come home!" Kimberly, the wife of a reservist deployed in February, wrote on the Web site of the support organization Military Families Speak Out. "Our unit has no redeployment date in sight, and we are constantly told that they may even be extended."

'Outs' to rest camps

Sanchez said commanders were working hard to make soldiers' lives more bearable, and many soldiers said they were getting new creature comforts such as better food, more air conditioning and access to television and the Internet.

"We've been doing a tremendous amount for them," Sanchez said in his office in Saddam Hussein's former palace.

He said soldiers were starting to get "outs" to rest camps inside Iraq to improve morale.

"They get pulled off-line for two or three days and they get to rest in an environment that is essentially stress-free, as much as you can be inside of Iraq," he said. "They've got Internet, they'll get TV, they'll have air-conditioned space, they'll get hot meals. In some places they have swimming pools, so we kind of get them to relax."

Sanchez also said 150 soldiers a day were being flown to the Persian Gulf state of Qatar for breaks, and that other R&R bases were planned for Jordan and Turkey.

Sanchez also spoke of a proposal to give soldiers a "mid-tour break" to see their families.

"The intent would be that between your fifth and 10th month of deployment you'd get 14 days of leave and be able to go home," Sanchez said, adding that he hoped the plan would be approved "within a couple of weeks."

Staff writer Bob Miller contributed to this report.