According to the August 20 London Sunday Mirror, a quarter of the soldiers from the 1st Battalion, Staffordshire Regiment have quit after the news that their regiment was to be redeployed to Iraq. Three members of the regiment died and 20 were injured during their last posting in Iraq. The Mirror quoted a source from the army as saying: There is no doubt that the fact that these men are being asked to go back to Iraq so soon has caused the exodus. Under the Armys own guidelines there should be a two-year gap between operational tours. The Staffords have barely had half that time.