(NewsNation) — Data suggests soldiers are away from home nearly as much as they were at the height of the Global War on Terror, despite there being no major ongoing wars, according to Military.com.
Military.com spoke to more than a dozen soldiers who say packed schedules of missions and trainings are straining their home lives to a breaking point.
“The average citizen doesn’t know how stressful this is on our families. I think it has been an incredible strain on our soldiers and our families,” Army Sgt. Maj. Michael Grinston told Military.com
“We have a 100% obligation to be ready for the worst-case scenario, so we have to go to the CTC (Combat Training Center). The American people would never forgive us if we sent soldiers to Europe that weren’t as trained as the best we could get,” Grinston said.
This month, the U.S. Army has roughly 120,000 soldiers deployed abroad, according to internal service data. The entire Department of Defense, including all military branches, had an all-time high of 187,900 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq when those conflicts peaked in 2008.