Our Opinion: Stop-loss hits home
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 10:43 AM PDT
When Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced last week that the Army will end its practice of extending soldiers’ contracts beyond their end dates, he said such stop-loss orders “break faith” with service members.
But the deployment next month of Oregon’s 41st Brigade Combat Team will include 479 soldiers affected by stop-loss, according to the Oregon Military Dept. That means that about 15.3 percent of the brigade could be deployed involuntarily. That’s a rate a little more than twice that of stop-lossed troops currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nobody likes stop loss, the policy that allows the Army to order soldiers to active duty when they would otherwise be able to leave the service. The people it hurts most are families and soldiers who intended to serve one or two hitches, then quit. For some, this stop-loss order will force some to drive the highways of Iraq for the next year rather than working or attending school in Oregon. For them, stop-loss is, indeed, a policy that “breaks faith” with volunteer soldiers.
To be sure, some portion of Oregon’s stop-lossed component includes soldiers who have every intention of re-enlisting when they get to Iraq, knowing retention bonuses are tax-free. Others among the stop-lossed may not deploy for medical reasons. But the fact remains that Oregon’s ratio of stop-lossed soldiers is substantially higher than typical.
Unfortunately for Oregon soldiers who want to leave the military, the Pentagon’s change of policy comes a little too late. Gates announced a timetable to reduce stop-lossed troops beginning in September, after the Oregon brigade deploys.
“The fact that the Army continues to rely on stop-loss the way it has has driven the Secretary to force the Army’s hand on this,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Friday. Yet, he said, “There’s no expectation that we can wave the magic wand” and end stop-loss overnight.
While the situation of every soldier and his or her family is unique, Oregon National Guard soldiers say there’s some grumbling in the ranks among stop-lossed soldiers who are scheduled to leave for training in California in April.
When brigade commander Col. Dan Hokanson conducted a town hall meeting with affected families in December, the first question from the crowd concerned stop-loss.
“It makes you wonder what the unit morale must be like — probably not great,” said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va., based think tank. “It also makes you realize that some citizens bear far more of a burden than others in protecting the nation.”
In the category of silver linings, an Army spokesman said stop-lossed soldiers in the 41st Brigade will receive $500 a month in compensation pay for as long as they are deployed under the policy.
That also may have the effect of inflating the Oregon numbers somewhat.
Nevertheless, on the eve of its biggest deployment in more than 60 years, the Oregon Military Department is trying to figure out how many people it is sending to war involuntarily, under a policy that the Pentagon has renounced.
It’s a heck of a way to run a war.
— The Oregonian
