Dwell Time

I have always felt that the time in between war zone deployments for our troops has been far too short. The military refers to that period as "dwell time". When the military says its goal is to have a certain period of time (months) back home in between deployments, and then requires unit personnel to often be away from home station during their dwell time period (training, domestic emergencies like tropical storms, fighting forest fires, etc) I have to ask, "where is the dwell in that dwell time?" Now, along comes Virginia Senator Jim Webb who proposes a law specifying that active-duty troops spend at least as much time at home as they spend deployed. National Guard and reserve members would have a promise of spending three times as long at home as they were deployed, before they could be tapped again for an overseas assignment. I agree with Senator Webb, but there ought to be some aspect of his proposal that recognizes the numerous "back-home" type missions being placed on troops, that may require Soldiers to be away from their families. After all, being with one's family is an integral part of dwell time, and if that's overlooked, then any set dwell time goal in terms of months "back home", is a goal in name only. Bottom line is that we have far too few troops to do all that is being asked of them. Unless we fix that, all these laws and goals are just a sham in my view.