Army says some soldiers misinterpret call to re-enlist

FORT CARSON, Colo. – Some soldiers have misinterpreted a new Army effort to encourage re-enlistment as a threat to send them to Iraq if they don’t re-up, Army officials said Wednesday.

According to newspaper reports, soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team were told they faced reassignment to units expected to be deployed to Iraq or Korea if they did not re-enlist by the end of the month or extend their duty until 2007.

Those who re-enlisted or extended would stay with the 3rd Brigade, which has been deployed for a year in Iraq.

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., has demanded an investigation, but Army officials at Fort Carson, which claims the highest re-enlistment rate in the nation, deny the allegations.

“It’s just not being done,” said spokesman Lt. Col. David Johnson. “We are a professional army. We want soldiers who want to be in the Army.”

Lt. Col. Theresa Lever said the 3rd Brigade Combat Team is taking part in a plan to stabilize units by allowing soldiers to request to stay at the same post after their enlistment is up. The Army previously discouraged this practice, called homesteading.

As part of the change, soldiers were being asked to state whether they wanted to remain with the unit, stay in the Army somewhere else or leave when their tours were up.

Some soldiers mistakenly took this to mean they should re-up or risk going to Iraq, Lever said.

Between one-fourth and one-third of the 4,000-member combat team at Fort Carson are nearing the ends of their enlistments and 850 have re-enlisted, Lever said.