FORT HOOD, Texas — Soldiers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan will be facing the extended 15-month deployments until at least June, even under a best-case scenario, a top Army commander said Tuesday.

Commanders are assessing the situation on the ground now, but Gen. Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, said it will take until at least June to shrink average deployments back to a year while maintaining the 158,000 troops deployed in Iraq now.

"It's going to take a while to get off the 15 months," he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday.

A decision on when to begin scaling back the longer deployments will depend on when President Bush and military commanders believe they can begin to pull back troops, he said. But once a decision is made, he cautioned, "We cannot automatically revert to 12 months. This is a river that's flowing."

During a day of meetings with troops, commanders and Army spouses at Fort Hood, he faced questions at every rank about the extended deployments and sought to reassure soldiers that the extension was a temporary measure designed to get enough soldiers in Iraq while giving them at least a year to rest and train between deployments.

"We will not extend you past 15 months. I guarantee you that — unless something really bad happens in the world," Cody told a group of 4th Infantry Division soldiers getting ready to deploy.

Many members of the division are preparing for their second and third deployments to Iraq later this year.

Tracy Willis, whose husband found out his deployment would be extended after he arrived in Iraq, said she's had to explain to her 5-year-old that the girl's father will be gone longer than expected.

A chain they built from construction paper to count down the days until Staff Sgt. Scott Willis comes home had to be extended by about 60 links, she said.

"I try to keep things as busy as possible to make the time go faster," said Willis, who also has a 6-month-old daughter. "I keep getting worried and upset that he's missing everything with the baby, all her first things."

Megan Sonkowsky, whose husband is serving his second 15-month deployment, said the extra three months makes a long deployment even worse.

"You're missing another holiday," she said. "A holiday, a birthday, anniversary is missing."

She hopes her husband, Sgt. Carl Sonkowsky, will be home in time for Christmas this year; he missed Thanksgiving and Christmas last year.

Cody said he would like to shorten deployments to as little as nine months, but cautioned that a larger combat force worldwide will likely be required for many years.

"We're going to be at this level of commitment for quite some time. When I say quite some time, I mean the next two decades," he said.

He does not expect the U.S. to maintain the present troop levels in Iraq that long, but he noted, "the neighborhood is pretty bad."

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