Hardship and Its Causes

Defense Secretary Robert Gates today announced that troop deployments to Iraq will be extended from the current 12 month tour to 15 months. And he added this:

Some very thoughtless person in this building made the unilateral decision yesterday to deny the army the opportunity to notify unit commanders who could then talk to their troops 48 hours before we made a public announcement [about the extended deployments]. And, I can't tell you how angry it makes many of us that one individual would create potentially so much hardship not only for our servicemen and women but their families, by letting them read about something like this in the newspapers.

Maybe I just don’t get it because I’m not in Iraq nor do I have a family member there, but it seems to me the greater hardship by miles is the extended deployment, not how people found out about it. If you care so much about “hardship”, Mr. Gates, how ‘bout bringing the troops home?