Air Force implements Stop-Loss

Air Force Link ^ | 03/14/03 | Staff Sgt. A.J. Bosker

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

03/14/03 - WASHINGTON -- The assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs has authorized the use of Stop-Loss to retain specific skills needed to meet national security objectives. Effective May 2, 43 officer and 56 enlisted specialties will be affected by Stop-Loss.

"We do not take this action lightly," said Secretary of the Air Force Dr. James G. Roche. "Stop-Loss is designed to preserve critical skills essential to supporting the global war on terrorism, while ensuring we're prepared to meet other contingencies."

"We've implemented Stop-Loss to ensure we have the necessary skilled personnel to conduct operations," said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John P. Jumper. "We'll use it only as long as necessary to accomplish our mission."

Stop-Loss is being implemented across the active duty, Air Force Ready Reserve and Air National Guard for the affected career fields in the ranks of airman through colonel, according to Maj. Teresa L. Forest, chief of Air Force retirements and separation policy at the Pentagon.

Both the secretary and chief of staff are acutely aware that the Air Force is an all-volunteer force and that this action, while essential to meeting the service's worldwide obligations, is inconsistent with the fundamental principles of voluntary service.

"We take Stop-Loss seriously and are working hard to ensure the lives of our airmen, their families and their civilian employers are not disrupted any longer than is necessary to meet our national commitments," Jumper said.

Therefore, a waiver process will be implemented for those people with unique circumstances.

"We are doing our best to minimize this disruption," Roche said. "And we will look at unique circumstances on a case-by-case basis and do all we can to offer appropriate relief."

"We understand the individual sacrifices that our airmen and their families will be making," Jumper said. "We appreciate their unwavering support and dedication to our nation."

For more information about Stop-Loss, people can contact their local military personnel flight or the Air Force Personnel Center's Stop-Loss Control Center at (210) 565-2374 or DSN 665-2374.

[mercy]

Time to start up the draft. If you support the war against terror you will sooner or later come round to the belief that we must have a draft. The Islamists are making new terrorists much faster than we are killing or locking them up. Then there's Korea and those new found oil reserves in Nigeria we will have to eventually defend. Then there is the mess in S. America. War is our history and our legacy. We've come through fifty years of relative calm but it's over.

[Grut]

Time to start up the draft.

If you think the troops get screwed now, just wait 'til Congress can force people to serve.

[68skylark]

If you support the war against terror you will sooner or later come round to the belief that we must have a draft.

I can't speak for other Freepers, but personally I've got a long way to go before I'm going to "come round" to supporting a draft.

With all due respect it sounds like a terrible idea to me.

[Spruce]

While I agree with your strategic concerns, I do not agree a draft is necessary. I attended, but 2 nights ago, an event sponsored by the Air Force. My daughter made me come with her as she is enlisting. Not only was the turnout way beyond my expectations, the quality of young people volunteering was truly inspiring. I am convinced that a professional, all-volunteer force is the best way.

[briant]

We should never have a draft. If we can't get enough to fight then we loose, and these hippie scum can get a taste of real oppression.

[Tennessee_Bob]

A draft?

Give me a force of volunteers anytime. Volunteers are there because they want to be. Draftees on the other hand - they wouldn't be there unless they had to be. While the draft during WWII may have been a good thing, it was a different society than it is now.

[JSteff]

They need to pay them better. For those in critical positions they are usually grossly under paid when compared to the private sector.
I would rather some of my tax money went to do this than any of the pet "buy a vote" spending of our congress critters.
Besides, defense is one of the few things they are LEGALLY allowed and MANDATED to do anyway.

[MainFrame65]

My army service was '62 to '65, deep in the draft years but just ahead of Vietnam. I enlisted just after the Cuban Missile crisis 60-day extension that actually caused a small number of people that enlisted just before me to not complete their service until after I got out.

College students and married men with children were deferred or exempted, so the draftees were mostly not well educated, or college dropouts like me. The draft then was exclusively army, for 2 years, and most draftees went to infantry after 8 weeks basic and 8 weeks advanced infantry training, plus some amount of specialist training if they happened to be chosen for it. That left a time in service of about one to 1 1/2 years for them.

That soldier would not be qualified for the highly technical army of today. Today's serviceman, even the infantry private, is a high school graduate, intelligent, literate, and trained far more extensively (and expensively) than ever before. While he might have joined for the training and benefits as a way to prepare for a civilian job, he serves for at least 3 years, and spends at least twice as much time training as he would have 35 years ago.

The officers are also better now than then. The job is far more technical, and the view, both up and down the chain of command, is much clearer than it used to be. Communication is extensive, and knowledge of the mission and the current situation at all levels is far superior. And if you can't adapt to this environment, you won't be around for long, because there are more than enough volunteers coming along.

We have the finest military that ever existed, and a draft would only lower that quality.

[boomop1]

My field is listed to bad I retired 23 years ago.

[boomop1]

To is too

[Kozak]

I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!
Source: Guest of Honor Speech at the XIXth World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, 1961

Says it all for me. A free military for a free people.

[mercy]

Somebody has to cook, drive trucks, wash clothes etc etc etc. If they get bored they can volunteer for combat. We will have a draft. It will be more necessary than WWII.