Does this mean my BF might not have to deploy there next year?

he might and he might not, it kinda depends on his chain of command.. like the big chain, the one's way way way up there.. deployments work off of slots.. people make plans about how many troops they want somewhere and then they fill the slots with units (most likely brigades), i'm not sure how the marines are structured but the army works off of brigades.. now if fifteen slots are availiable and president says he's gonna reduce troop numbers then slots go down to five (it's just a number for an example) now the people who were in slots 1-5 are still gonna deploy, 6-15 get kicked to the curb, now.. this is the crazy part, if the unit in slot 10 really wanted to go, they can do "drug deals" with another unit in a 1-5 slot and take their slot.. it's been done.. it happened to me..