The percentage of soldiers who are unavailable for combat has risen sharply during the past three years from 11% of each brigade in 2007 to 16% this year, Army records show.<\/p>\n
Repeated deployments and health problems have driven much of the increase in soldiers listed as non-deployable, said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff. A brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.<\/p>\n
“These are folks who had a knee problem after the first (combat) rotation,” he said, “and then, finally, after the third one of humping a rucksack in Afghanistan at 10,000 feet, the doc says, ‘I don’t care if you’re going to deploy again, the fact of the matter is you’re going to (stay back until you) get your knee fixed.’ ”<\/p>\n
Nearly 70% of the Army’s current roster of 460,000 enlisted soldiers have been to war \u201d\u201d half of them once, nearly a third of them twice, 13% with three combat tours and 4% deployed four times.<\/p>\n