COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: Stop-Loss
Army Forces 50,000 Soldiers into Extended Duty
Will Dunham, Reuters
Janury 29, 2006
The U.S. Army has forced about 50,000 soldiers to continue serving
after their voluntary stints ended under a policy called "stop-loss,"
but
while some dispute its fairness, court challenges have fallen flat.
The policy applies to soldiers in units due to deploy for the Iraq
and
Afghanistan wars. The Army said stop-loss is vital to maintain units
that
are cohesive and ready to fight. But some experts said it shows how
badly
the Army is stretched and could further complicate efforts to attract
new
recruits.
"As the war in Iraq drags on, the Army is accumulating a
collection of
problems that cumulatively could call into question the viability of an
all-volunteer force," said defense analyst Loren Thompson of the
Lexington
Institute think tank.
"When a service has to repeatedly resort to compelling the
retention
of people who want to leave, you're edging away from the whole notion
of
volunteerism."
When soldiers enlist, they sign a contract to serve for a certain
number of years, and know precisely when their service obligation ends
so
they can return to civilian life. But stop-loss allows the Army,
mindful of
having fully manned units, to keep soldiers on the verge of leaving the
military.
Under the policy, soldiers who normally would leave when their
commitments expire must remain in the Army, starting 90 days before
their
unit is scheduled to depart, through the end of their deployment and up
to
another 90 days after returning to their home base.
With yearlong tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, some soldiers can be
forced to stay in the Army an extra 18 months.
Hardship for Some Soldiers
Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman, said that "there is no
plan to discontinue stop-loss."
"We understand that this is causing hardship for some individual
soldiers, and we take individual situations into consideration,"
Hilferty said.
Hilferty said there are about 12,500 soldiers in the regular Army,
as
well as the part-time National Guard and Reserve, currently serving
involuntarily under the policy, and that about 50,000 have had their
service extended since the program began in 2002. An initial limited
use of
stop-loss was expanded in subsequent years to affect many more.
"While the policies relative to the stop-loss seem harsh, in terms
of
suspending scheduled separation dates (for leaving the Army), they are
not
absolute," Hilferty said. "And we take individual situations into
consideration for compelling and compassionate reasons."
Hilferty noted the Army has given "exceptions" to 210 enlisted
soldiers "due to personal hardship reasons" since October 2004,
allowing
them to leave as scheduled.
"The nation is at war and we are stop-lossing units deploying to a
combat theater to ensure they mobilize, train, deploy, fight, redeploy
and
demobilize as a team," he said.
No Luck in Court
A few soldiers have gone to court to challenge stop-loss.
One such case fizzled last week, when U.S. District Judge Royce
Lamberth in Washington dismissed a suit filed in 2004 by two Army
National
Guard soldiers. The suit claimed the Army fraudulently induced soldiers
to
enlist without specifying that their service might be involuntarily
extended.
Courts also have backed the policy's legality in Oregon and
California
cases.
Jules Lobel, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who
represented
the National Guard soldiers, said a successful challenge to stop-loss
was
still possible.
"I think the whole stop-loss program is a misrepresentation to
people
of how long they're going to actually serve. I think it's caused
tremendous
morale problems, tremendous psychological damage to people," Lobel
said.
"When you sign up for the military, you're saying, 'I'll give you,
say, six years and then after six years I get my life back.' And
they're
saying, 'No, really, we can extend you indefinitely."'
Congressional critics have assailed stop-loss, and 2004 Democratic
presidential nominee John Kerry called it "a back-door draft." The
United
States abolished the draft in 1973, but the all-volunteer military
never
before has been tested by a protracted war.
A report commissioned by the Pentagon called stop-loss a
"short-term
fix" enabling the Army to meet ongoing troop deployment requirements,
but
said such policies "risk breaking the force as recruitment and
retention
problems mount." It was written by Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army
officer.
Thompson added, "The persistent use of stop-loss underscores the
fact
that the war-fighting burden is being carried by a handful of soldiers
while the vast majority of citizens incur no sacrifice at all."
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