In October 2008, Army leadership asked the RAND Arroyo Center to assess the demands placed upon the Army by deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. The resulting analysis (documented in "Army Deployments to OIF and OEF," DB-587-A) found that the Army had provided over 1 million troop-years to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). In addition, most active-duty soldiers deploying to these operations were on their second or third tour. This report serves as an update to the original documented briefing. The Army has now provided more than 1.5 million troop-years to OEF and OIF/Operation New Dawn. There have also been two noteworthy trends since the original study: from December 2008 to December 2011, the cumulative amount of time that a soldier has spent deployed has increased (on average) by 28 percent, and the fraction of active-duty soldiers who have not yet deployed has decreased, from 33 percent to 27 percent.

Measuring the total number of troop deployments the Army has provided. The Army has provided more troops than all the other services combined / Measuring how long individual soldiers have been deployed / Trends in cumulative deployment time. Since 2008, the percentage of Army soldiers who have deployed has increased -- Since 2008, there has been an increase in the number of soldiers who have accumulated two or more years of deployments -- Since 2008, there has been a decrease in the fraction of soldiers that have not yet deployed / The Army retains very little excess capacity.