WASHINGTON, Sept 27: The US Army is considering shortening yearlong combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan amid concerns the long and perilous duty is making it hard to attract new soldiers and keep current ones, officials said on Monday.

US Army leaders are looking at a length of service closer to the seven-month combat tours of Marines in those war zones, a senior Army official said. But the official said there was concern among some in the Army that this step could undermine units on the battlefield and that any change might be at least two years away.

"Shorter tours cause more turbulence," with more soldiers in transit to and from the combat zones, the official said. "It affects cohesiveness. It affects their ability to conduct their duty in a combat zone by knowing the terrain, knowing the enemy and knowing who is friendly. People come in and they'll be looking to get out."

Troubling signs already are emerging as the all-volunteer military is put to the test by numerous overseas commitments. For example, the Army National Guard, made up of part-time soldiers more accustomed in the past to responding to natural disasters in their home states rather than overseas combat duty, conceded it will fall short of its recruitment goal for the current fiscal year, which ends on Thursday.

The Army National Guard set a goal of 56,000 recruits, but is likely to come up about 5,000 short, said Scott Woodham, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon.

Woodham said the fiscal year's goal was for 350,000 soldiers in the Army National Guard, including current ones and new recruits. While soldier retention is on target, the roughly 13 percent recruitment shortfall will make this the first fiscal year since 1995 that the Army National Guard has failed to achieve its personnel goal, Woodham said.

'REDUCE THE STRESS': Army officials are concerned that the dangerous duty and long deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan could lead many soldiers to leave the military once their volunteer service commitments expire rather than signing up for more service. "The Army definitely wants to reduce the stress on the force," the senior Army official said. -Reuters