‘Stop-loss’ use keeping more soldiers in Army

WASHINGTON – The number of soldiers forced to remain in the Army involuntarily under the military’s “stop-loss” program has risen sharply since the Pentagon extended combat tours last year, officials said Thursday.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was briefed about the program by Army officials who said that thousands of new stop-loss orders were issued to keep soldiers from leaving the service after Gates ordered combat tours extended to 15 months from 12 months last spring.

The Army has resorted to involuntary extensions for soldiers who have completed their service commitment to prevent them from leaving immediately before a combat tour or in the middle of a deployment.

Army officials have argued the policy is necessary to ensure that they are not forced to send inadequately trained soldiers and unprepared units into war.

However, many soldiers subjected to the stop-loss policy consider it a back-door draft. Critics argue that once soldiers have completed the enlistment term they agreed to, they should be allowed to return home.

The number of soldiers held in the Army because of the stop-loss policy reached a high in March 2005 of 15,758. That number steadily declined through May 2007, when it hit 8,540.

But since then, the number of soldiers subjected to stop-loss began to increase once more, reaching 12,235 in March of this year.

Gates ordered combat tours extended in April 2007 to support the U.S. troop buildup and to address concerns about uneven tour lengths. But because many soldiers were due to leave the service at the end of their combat tour, Army officials had to order them under stop-loss provisions to remain in the service.

In a news conference Thursday, Gates said he believed the Army had good reasons for using the stop-loss policy

“They don’t like it any better than I do. But it has proven necessary in order to maintain the force,” Gates said

Still, Gates said use of the policy “is an issue. It troubles me.” Top Defense Department officials have pushed the Army to reduce the use of stop-loss.

“When somebody expects to leave at a given time, and you tell them they can’t do that, it’s got to have an impact on them. And that’s the part that troubles me,” Gates said.

Soldiers subjected to stop-loss are frequently those whose enlistment period ends during a combat tour or who are due to leave within 90 days of the scheduled start of a combat tour.

Without stop-loss, the Army would have to replace those soldiers with new ones who had not trained with the unit.

From 2002 to 2007, 58,300 soldiers were given stop-loss orders, forcing them to remain in the service past the end of their enlistment period.

The number of soldiers serving under stop-loss orders will begin to decline again in September, Gates said. By then, there will be fewer U.S. troops in Iraq, and Army combat tours will have returned to 12 months.