The Army this summer will start cutting back on use of the unpopular practice of holding troops beyond their enlistment dates and hopes to almost completely eliminate it in two years.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, though, that it may never be possible to completely get rid of the policy called "stop-loss," under which some 13,000 soldiers whose time is already up are still being forced to continue serving.
"I believe that when somebody's end date of service comes, to hold them against their will, if you will, is just not the right thing to do," he said, noting that officials will still retain the legal power to involuntarily extend soldiers' service if needed.
"I felt, particularly in these numbers, that it was breaking faith," Gates told a Pentagon news conference.
He said that he hoped any future use after 2011 would only be in "scores, not thousands."Critics have called "stop-loss" a backdoor draft because it keeps troops in the military beyond the end of their enlistment or retirement dates. But the military has said it's a necessary tool to keep unit cohesion in times of war and to keep soldiers with certain skills needed in those units.
This was all about unit cohesion. Keeping key personnel in a unit that is deploying to a combat zone saves American lives by making sure the unit is more effective. Period.
And every soldier knows that their period of enlistment includes many years of reserve duty that can be turned into active duty at the discretion of the military. That's what stop-loss is. It is not extending service beyond the end of their enlistment. It is changing reserve duty (inlcuding retired reserve duty) to active duty. Do I blame soldiers for not liking stop loss? Hell no. And I hope we find we can do away with it because we can properly staff units that will deploy with personnel whose terms of active service won't end during the deployment overseas.
Do you really think that the Army, was forced to "draft" soldiers for lack of numbers? Recruiting and retention have been amazingly good during this war. And the stop-loss policy affected 13,000 soldiers this last year. The affected soldiers could be there another year or another month. Let's call it 6 months on average, so that is really the equivalent of 6,500 soldiers for a year. Are you really saying this was done for the sake of 6,500 bodies?
The people claiming this was a backdoor draft are idiots. Not that they aren't perfectly capable of dreaming up another mythical crime against humanity to chant about.
UPDATE: Secretary Gates explains it well:
It wasn't a violation of the enlistment contract. But I believe that when somebody's end date of service comes up, to hold them against their will, if you will, is just not the right thing to do. And so it has been a focus, for most of the time that I've been here. And I get regular reports on it. And all the arrows were pointing in the wrong direction for a long time.
But I just felt that there will always, probably always be a need to do this with a relatively small number of people who have special skills. But I would like to get it down to scores, not thousands.
Unfortunately, lives are theortetically at risk with this decision:
In addition, the Army will begin a number of incentive programs to encourage additional soldiers to voluntarily extend their enlistments and thus mitigate the impact this change may have on unit strength and unit cohesion.
So we'll ask needed soldiers to stay but won't make them stay. While this may be an acceptable risk for most Iraq-bound units where the environment is less threatening, this is not appropriate for units going to Mosul or Afghansitan where the threats are far higher.
War is certainly about weighing various risks. I don't see how ending stop loss is anything but a political decision when weighing the fairness to individual soldiers who are retained legally against the lives of others who will die without the stop-lossed soldiers.
