COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: Stop-Loss
Involuntary service
James la Terza, Michigan Daily
September 11, 2007
I write this piece regarding my opinion on the current war fundingdebate in Congress as an Army veteran. I hope that my experiences can
help University students gain a better understanding of the impact
the war is having on our nation's service members.
Our nation is not fighting the war against terrorism with an
"all-volunteer force," like the administration claims. On the
contrary, the Department of Defense has implemented several policies
to retain soldiers on a non-voluntary basis. I am personally familiar
with these policies; I have been ordered to serve involuntarily on
two separate occasions. I would like to share my experiences in order
to help people understand the consequences of our government's poor
planning and its inability to gain support at home and abroad for a
militaristic and aggressive solution to prevent another Sept. 11. In
this way, I hope that readers can decide for themselves if America's
current strategy is truly as sustainable as politicians would like us
to believe.
My story is not unique for members of the Army and the Marines that
have served since Sept. 11. I signed a contract to serve eight years
in the Army - four years on active duty and four years in the
reserves. Like thousands of soldiers affected by the Army's stop-loss
policy, my active duty service was involuntarily extended by six
months for a deployment to Afghanistan. I understood the need to
maintain cohesiveness within my unit to complete a difficult mission,
and I served my year in Afghanistan proudly. I was honorably
discharged and joined the Individual Readiness Reserve, which is an
alternative for soldiers who choose not to join the National Guard or
Army Reserves.
Sixteen months later, after completing a graduate degree and starting
a new professional career, I received orders for an 18-month
involuntary mobilization in order to deploy to Iraq. Given the
circumstances in my life and my moral opposition to our government's
course of action in Iraq, I chose to follow the Army's process to
request exemption from the mobilization. After receiving notice that
my exemption was denied (with no explanation of the specific grounds
on which it was denied), I followed the administrative process to
appeal the decision. In the end, I was informed that my appeal was
also denied and that my total service obligation would be extended by
a minimum of seven months beyond my eight-year contractual agreement.
The authority for involuntary extension of duty is derived from a
"declaration of national emergency by reason of certain terrorist
attacks" within a Presidential Executive Order issued on Sept. 14,
2001. As The New York Times reported, President Bush waited until
2006 to increase the size of our armed forces to address the strain
in the military that resulted from this national emergency. I believe
that involuntary service extensions such as mine directly resulted
from a failure to address the strain on the military for the five
years following Sept. 11.
There are many more examples of the desperate measures that the
Department of Defense has resorted to in order to execute the current
strategy in Iraq. Recruiting standards have been lowered to
embarrassing levels at a time that demands competency and
professionalism in the military. Deployments have been extended from
12 months to 15 months, and many soldiers are currently serving their
third tour in Iraq. Retirement has been postponed for soldiers who
have decided not to continue after more than 20 years of service. Do
these sound like characteristics of an all-volunteer force or a force
capable of executing the president's policies in Iraq for an
indefinite period of time?
While we debate the prudence of drawdowns and surges, the Army has
announced an alarming increase in suicides. Divorce rates have
climbed as spouses struggle to manage households and deal with the
anxiety of 15-month-long separations during combat tours. And when
soldiers finally return to their families and decide to exercise
their contractual right to exit the military, our administration
thanks them for their sacrifices by extending their service time for
additional deployments and citing powers granted under a 6-year-old
declaration of emergency.
Please consider these facts while you listen to the upcoming debate
in Congress. Take time to contemplate the price that service members
will continue to pay if Congress does not demand a change of course.
Are our elected leaders unpatriotic if they admit that it's time to
relieve the burden on our military? Are we really "supporting the
troops" by funding a persistently failing strategy?
I agree with the president in that America faces a difficult
challenge in maintaining security at home and defending our interests
abroad against the threat of terrorism. I emphatically disagree that
we should rely on the military to shoulder the burden. One hundred
sixty-thousand soldiers with weapons patrolling the streets of
Baghdad will not convince millions of Iraqis to live in peace. Nor
can they prevent terrorists across the world from finding other safe
havens from which to operate.
The solution must be one that our nation and our allies can embrace
and one that we can sustain for many years. If you agree, please
voice your opinion to your representatives in Congress. Despite what
the president might try to lead you to believe, it's time to support
the troops with more than patience and a fading yellow ribbon magnet
on your car bumper.
This archive consists of a topically organized selection of
articles culled by members of the Counter-Recruitment List Serve from printed
publications and web sites. The archive is not complete. We have chosen
material relevant to the work of