Departing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said he's worried that the "stress and strain" of more than 13 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq is diving out of the military highly qualified U.S. service members.
In an interview with
NPR's "Morning Edition," Hagel described the "hidden consequences" of "nonstop war" for American combat forces since the Afghan invasion in 2001. He said the situation was "unprecedented in the history of this country."
He noted that the demands of combat roles often find the same people rotating to the front lines "four, five, [or] six combat tours" consecutively.
Hagel told NPR that when he talked to a group of six successful young military officers recently, "five out of the six said they were uncertain over whether they were going to stay in the service and most likely would get out."
"And why? Because of family issues, because of stress, and strain," he said.
Hagel, a former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska, also touched on other issues in the interview, addressing the deteriorating situation in Yemen, the challenges of identifying and training Syrian rebels in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), and the difficulty of closing Guantanamo Bay.
"It's going to be very difficult" to close Guantanamo by the end of the president's term, he said, "especially if the Congress further restricts where these last 122 detainees will go, how they will be dealt with."
On Yemen, Hagel said the administration is "working our way through what the facts are" after the president and his Cabinet resigned following a
near coup by sectarian Houthi rebels last week.
"I think until we get a better understanding of how the Yemenis want to go forward in governing, then that will determine the future relationships," he told NPR.
"But we want to continue to have that relationship, which has been important, with the government," he said.
Yemen has been a main source of some of the worst Islamic extremists, but the U.S. has also worked closely with the country to try to eliminate the threat.
On the subject of Syria, Hagel said the U.S. must continue to pursue a policy that trains moderate forces to "take back their communities and their towns and their cities" from insurgents of the Islamic State.
At the same time, he told NPR, "[this] issue in Syria is not going to be solved militarily.
"This is going to require ... a political change, a shift" in Syria. "There is a military dynamic to it, but the military dynamic cannot lead and will not lead."
Hagel's deputy at the Pentagon,
Ashton Carter, has been nominated to replace him and will likely be confirmed by the Senate shortly.
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