Army operations destroying marriages
Tuesday, 20 January 2009 12:00 AM
The British army is so overstretched it is ruining the family lives of its personnel, the head of the army has warned.
General Sir Richard Dannat said servicemen and women are "seriously overstretched" by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the time between deployments needs to be extended from two years to 30 months.
The fast pace of operations has put serious strain on marriages and family life for many soldiers and caused some to break down.
In a speech, Gen Dannat said: "Many families and marriages have unfortunately fallen victim to the relentless pace of operations.
"We have seriously stretched our soldiers - both their goodwill and their families."
He understands that money will not be pumped into the army but says that a restructuring will make it more effective and able to decrease the time people are on operations.
He will reform the Army's fighting brigades into larger units so they can be sent away less often. The ten brigades which currently comprise of around 4,000 men would be streamlined into six.
Gen Dannatt said: "A gap of one year between operational deployment is not unusual and often soldiers are spending much of the year before a deployment away from home, in training and preparation. This is unacceptable."
The army is also significantly undermanned and numbers needs to be increased for it to remain operational.
"The army should be about 102,000 soldiers. It is currently about 98,500. By definition we are undermanned.
"There is a very strong argument for the size of our land forces to be larger."
Dr Liam Fox, shadow secretary of defence, has supported the general's comments and called for more to be done to make the lives of army personnel better.
He said: "General Dannatt's suggestions should be taken seriously as he is at least attempting creative solutions for our overstretch problem.
"Reducing the number of overseas deployments is a start, but the government must also look at issues of housing, healthcare and veterans' welfare if it wants to avert a serious crisis in recruitment and retention."
The general will be retiring his position as chief of the general staff later this year
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