Army Expanding 'Stop-Loss' Program

AP ^ | 6/2/04 | JOHN J. LUMPKIN

[TexKat]

WASHINGTON - The Army will prevent soldiers in units set to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan from leaving the service at the end of their terms, a top general said Wednesday.

The announcement, an expansion of an Army program called "stop-loss," means that thousands of soldiers who had expected to retire or otherwise leave the military will have to stay on for the duration of their deployment to those combat zones.

The expansion affects units that are 90 days away or less from deploying, said Lt. Gen. Frank L. "Buster" Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel. Commanders have the ability to make exceptions for soldiers with special circumstances; otherwise, soldiers won't be able to leave the service or transfer from their unit until they return to their home base after the deployment.

The move will allow the Army to keep units together as they deploy, Hagenbeck said. Units with new recruits or recently transferred soldiers would not perform as well because the troops would not have had time to work together.

"The rationale is to have cohesive, trained units going to war together," Hagenbeck said.

Previously, the Army had prevented soldiers from leaving certain units scheduled for deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq. But Wednesday's move is the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, that the stop-loss program has been ordered so widely.

The announcement comes as the Army is struggling to find fresh units to continue the occupation of Iraq. Almost every Army combat unit has faced or will face deployment there or in Afghanistan, and increased violence has forced the deployment of an additional 20,000 troops to the region, straining units even further.

Some criticize the stop-loss program as contrary to the concept of an all-volunteer military force. Soldiers planning to retire and get on with their lives now face months away from their families and homes.

In an opinion piece in Wednesday's New York Times, Andrew Exum, a former Army captain who served under Hagenbeck in the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan, called the treatment of soldiers under stop-loss programs "shameful."

"Many, if not most, of the soldiers in this latest Iraq-bound wave are already veterans of several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan," he wrote. "They have honorably completed their active duty obligations. But like draftees, they have been conscripted to meet the additional needs in Iraq."

Hagenbeck said the stop-loss move is necessary only because the Army is also undergoing a major reorganization that requires some units to be taken off-line while they are restructured.

Hagenbeck had no numbers on how many soldiers would be affected.

Without the program, an average division would have to replace 4,000 soldiers — perhaps one-quarter to one-fifth of its strength — before or during a deployment, according an Army press release.

[TSgt]

The announcement comes as the Army is struggling to find fresh units to continue the occupation of Iraq."

This is why we need to expand the active duty forces. Watch for a mass exodus in Guard and Reserve over the next 12 months.

[tomder55]

Time to bring the troop strength up to pre-Clinton levels .

[Newbomb Turk]

The Army has already decided many Guard and Reserve soldiers plan to leave as soon as possible after they return from deployment. That is why many Guard units have been extended to a full 18 month boots on ground in Iraq. The Army does not care about these soldiers because they consider them a lost asset now anyway. 365 days boots on ground. Another Bush administration promise broken.

[mark502inf]

The Army is too small. Time for the top Pentagon leadership to take notice. It makes sense to stabilize soldiers in units both for the train-up prior to deployment and for the entire tour in combat; lots of benefits in teamwork, efficiency, and cohesion.

However, if the Army had more troops, it could achieve the goal of fully manned and stabilized units without requiring veterans to be involuntarily extended past their enlistment term of service and sent on their second and third combat tours.

[ARCADIA]

This seems quite unfair to our volunteer force. I can understand the urgency of the matter; however, the administration cannot continue to downplay the need for troops on one hand, while going into crisis mode and overloading our existing forces. It is time to take a fresh approach at this, to compensate those who have been unjustly carrying more then their fair share of the burden, and to put in place a plan to develop adequate troop strength. The peace dividends is a thing of the past; we need to get back on a war footing.

[quadrant]

The Army is not too small. It does have too few grunts, but its top heavy with support personnel and generals.
The Army's command structure is too elaborate, redundant, and overlapping. For instance, I've learned that the Army still maintains a multi-layered command structure in NATO.
Of course, its ridiculous to believe that any of those bureaucrats in uniform would be much good in the streets of Iraq, but it makes little sense to expand the Army until it reforms its organizational structure.

[xzins]

Stop-Loss IS contrary to an all-volunteer force.

It highlights 2 things once again:

1. This army should be 18 divisions (a low of 15.) The Clintoon Cuts were way too deep and have left this a one regional war army. That is now OBVIOUS.

2. Congress should immediately authorize the rebuilding of 5 to 8 divisions with new volunteers. Their pay should be so HIGH that they have no difficulty getting the recruits. If the gov't can pay contractors enough so that they can pay truck drivers $100 grand a year, then the military can DOUBLE the pay of junior enlisted folks.

If they do these things then I GUARANTEE there will be plenty and troops and ZERO deployment problems.

[mil-vet]

Rumsfeld is hard over against manpower increases - he has consistently denied requests for more personnel. Thst's his prerogative, but I, for one, do not understand his logic.

My soldier son-in-law has already spent a year unaccompanied, away from his wife and daughter for a year, in South Korea. After about a year and a half back in the states, he is now being sent to the sandbox for another year of unaccompanied service. After all is said and done, he will have spent well over 4 years, of which 25 months will have been spent away from family, on a three-year enlistment (assuming he DOES make it through his tour without terminal incident).

The eight divisions 'toon cut out of the army during his 8 years of selling America down the river are coming back to haunt us - "high tempo" deployments are all well and good - they are some of the more enjoyable military assignments (beats the politics of, say, being stationed in the Pentagon!), but my son-in-law's experience is NOT unique and it shows we are undermanned for the current workload!

One can say, as in another post, that the army is big enough, that it is merely top-heavy.....I believe that perspective to be an overstatement of a relatively minor (but NOT totally untrue!) manpower issue. Be that as it may, the bottom line is that we need to reverse at least a couple of 'toon's regimental cuts!

[cwb]

"The peace dividends is a thing of the past; we need to get back on a war footing."

---

I agree. This has always been a problem for this country after we've defeated an enemy. Whether it was WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam or the Cold War...we have this naivety as if we've always defeated the last enemy.

Combine that with liberal politicians who view the military as an unnecessary expenditure...and a direct impediment to revenues they need to fund their dependency/vote buying programs, and we always end up shorting ourselves.

From my perspective there is no such thing as a peace dividend since freedom is never free...and on the contrary, is usually quite expensive. We never seem to learn from history

[airborne]

Or, instead of sending our soldiers into urban areas to draw fire in an effort to find the enemy's position, maybe we could soften up the area first. Say with a few bombs maybe?
But I guess putting our troops' lives above the civilians(?) lives would be not PC.

[StarCMC]

PING

[tomder55]

would not get an argument from me . since we have decided to eliminate the MOAB from the arsenal ;what better purpose could they serve?

[Old Sarge]

I can recall the days of the Cold War, when even in our wildest dreams, we would only have beefed up from 18 to 33 divisions. Reason being, a US heavy formation has more combat power per capita than any other unit on the planet. We don't need as much extra troops, to put the same amount of weapons downrange.

As far as a "mass exodus in Guard and Reserve over the next 12 months"? Not really at all. The Army Guard, for example, has hit all its markers for retention for this year, and last year's as well. The reason is, Big Army is not drawing on the Guard strength as hard as The Left would have you believe. The various state commands are stopping deployments when necessary, to preserve manning strength for other missions - my rotation to Bosnia got called off in April at the two-star level. But another point is this: if a troop's going to leave Big Army for the Guard, he's going to run the chance of getting called up anyway. Sure he'll have more home time, but if the orders come, he's just as deployed.

Now, Chaplain, a pay increase like you advocate would be a good thing, obviously. And, I agree that The Reign of Terror, 1993-2001, gutted Big Army too much, but a lot of those formations morphed into the Reserves; the Guard didn't pick as many of them up. As such, the Reserve formations get called on more heavily, and that generates sob stories for the presstitutes to splash on the banner.

And bear in mind, all, that this is the Associated Presstitutes, who deep in the article are quoting the Old Grey Mare. This whole op-ed piece is meant to provoke these very arguements: Army's too small, can't perform the mission, Bush lied, etc. Grain of salt time, any time you read them.

[xzins]

Sarge, thanks for a thoughtful post.

I don't believe in complaining for the sake of armchair quarterbacking in the middle of a war. I've been around FR since 1998 -- I was still active duty then -- and I've been complaining about the downsized Army since then and before then.

No one wants to admit the truth about an Army -- and it's always irked me -- that it is as necessary for occupation and reconstruction as it is for warfighting.

The AF gets all kinds of money for their gadgets. The Navy gets the same.

The ground forces, on the other hand, ALWAYS are the ones who have to remain and keep the peace and defang the old enemy.

That takes troops.

Retention rates in the midst of national crisis are unreliable indicators of long term retention. Politicians might not understand it, but the esprit and comeraderie of fighting units in the midst of war have almost always seen a rise in retention.

It's LATER...when it looks like peace is won and the army is going back to the spit and polish corps...when soldiers think of families and LEAVE....gutting the force.

That's the way it was 2 years after Bosnia/Kosovo. That's the way it'll be approx. 3 years from now.

[MEG33]

What was the promise?

[campfollower]

I'm with looking at the source and the agenda for this report by the AP. My Marine, near the top of the ladder with 29 years in, has been contemplating retirement so he can come home and marry me.(haven't seen him in 15 months, though talk to him daily). They've been turning guys down left and right for retirement since 9-11, depending on MOS. So there is no real news here. Just more mud thrown on the wall to inspire anti-Bush, anti-war discussion.

I tire immensely of the way liberals USE our forces to make political points. We all know stop-loss is a possiblity we live with. But most guys I know are NOT rushing to get out. They feel invested in this mission and don't want to watch the progress on television. They want to be there, see the truth, affect the outcome, care for their men. Don't EVER assume our military are victims. They deal with challenges yes.

Now, maybe Marines and Marine dependents are just a heck of a lot tougher than other services. No whiney wimps in these ranks and if that means life's on hold, well, SOMEONE has to do the job, and it might as well be THE BEST!)

[Old Sarge]

A VERY tongue-in-cheek screen name! Welcome to FR!!

I can agree on the retirement stops, except I'd add this: most of the old guys, like me, don't WANT to leave. Plus, the stop-loss doesn't affect Guardsmen, unless they're already called back up. If you're an 18-series (SF), you're not going to the porch anytime soon. But an admin type, a 71 or 75? No stop, there.

I'm a 96; so I'm staying whether they like it or not. (G)

[TexKat]

Now, maybe Marines and Marine dependents are just a heck of a lot tougher than other services. No whiney wimps in these ranks and if that means life's on hold, well, SOMEONE has to do the job, and it might as well be THE BEST!)

My son is in the army, 12 years now, just recently returned from Iraq and just signed up for another 4 years.

I guess it is an individual thing, I cannot and will not speak and make a blanket statement for all those that are involved and are out on the battlefield. Since I am not in their shoes I could not possibly be an expert on the subject.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ping