On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, Thomas Wheeler wrote:
> And while we don't call it a "draft", the stop-loss orders that prevent
> soldiers from leaving or retiring from the military certainly feels like
> a "draft" to some of those directly affected by it.
And it's getting more oppressive all the time. The newest foray in the "individual ready reserve" means they are now drafting people who once served in the military years ago and now aren't even in the reserve. It's taking the "voluntary" out of volunteer army. It deserves lots of publicity -- perhaps it will be one more thing convincing people not to join.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/02/opinion/02EXUM.html
The New York Times June 2, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
For Some Soldiers the War Never Ends
By ANDREW EXUM
C HATTANOOGA, Tenn. Many Americans, feeling that we did not have
enough troops in Iraq, were pleased when the Defense Department
announced last month that 20,000 more soldiers were being sent to put
down the insurgency and help rebuild the country. Unfortunately, few
realized that many of these soldiers would serve long after their
contractual obligations to the active-duty military are complete. In
essence, they will no longer be voluntarily serving their country.
These soldiers are falling victim to the military's "stop-loss" policy
and as a former officer who led some of them in battle, I find their
treatment shameful. Announced shortly after the 9/11 attacks and
authorized by President Bush, the stop-loss policy allows commanders
to hold soldiers past the date they are due to leave the service if
their unit is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Military officials rightly point out that stop-loss prevents a mass
exodus of combat soldiers just before a combat tour.
But nonetheless, the stop-loss policy is wrong; it runs contrary to
the concept of the volunteer military set up in the aftermath of the
Vietnam War. Many if not most of the soldiers in this latest
Iraq-bound wave are already veterans of several tours in Iraq and
Afghanistan. They have honorably completed their active duty
obligations. But like draftees, they have been conscripted to meet the
additional needs in Iraq.
Among them are many of my former comrades in the Second Brigade of the
10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, N.Y. In the aftermath of
the Sept. 11 attacks, I led a platoon of light infantry first to
Kuwait in 2001 and then in combat in Afghanistan during Operation
Anaconda in 2002. My men had all enlisted before the 9/11 attacks. In
Kuwait and Afghanistan, they performed flawlessly, with several
earning commendations for bravery in combat.
Yet even after two deployments to Afghanistan, and with many nearing
the end of their commitments, these soldiers will have to head to Iraq
this summer and remain there for at least a year. I remain close with
them, and as the unit received its marching orders a few called me to
express their frustration. To a man, they felt a sense of hopelessness
they know they have little say over their future until the Army
releases them.
I grew angry when my former radio operator told me the Army had
canceled his orders to return home to San Francisco this month to
start college. Another man had been due to leave the Army just two
days after the order was given, but was instead told to draw his gear
and prepare for 12 months in the desert. And as stressful as these
orders are for the soldiers, imagine what their families are feeling.
Theirs are lives interrupted by the needs of Iraq.
I wonder if I might have been affected too had I stayed at Fort Drum
until the end of my service. (Instead, I left a year and half ago to
complete my four-year obligation with a special operations unit in
Iraq and Afghanistan, and thus don't fall under the Fort Drum
stop-loss order.) I can imagine how angry and betrayed I would feel
if, having served my obligation to the military for my college
scholarship, I were told I was going to Iraq for a year against my
wishes.
Of course, I would have done whatever was asked: as a commissioned
officer, my oath of service to my country never really ends. But for
enlisted soldiers, men and women who sign on with the Army for a
predetermined period of service in lieu of commissions, stop-loss is a
gross breach of contract.
These soldiers have already been asked to sacrifice much and have done
so proudly. Yet the military continues to keep them overseas because
it knows that through stop-loss it can do so legally, and that it will
not receive nearly as much negative publicity as it would by
reinstating the draft.
Volunteer soldiers on active duty don't have the right to protest or
speak out against the policy. So my former radio operator has little
option but to quietly pack up and put college on hold. For those of us
who have seen these soldiers repeatedly face death, watching them
march off again after they should have already left the Army is
painful.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld continues to claim that the
military, as now structured, can meet the needs of the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. He is simply wrong, as the Pentagon's actions make
clear. In addition to stop-loss, the military is now activating
significant portions of the Individual Ready Reserve as part of what
it is calling an "involuntary mobilization."
The individual reserve consists of troops who are no longer expected
to participate even in regular training; the idea is that they are to
be called up only in a catastrophic national emergency. Most are
veterans recently released from active duty; others are college
students on scholarship and cadets at the service academies.
So several of my former soldiers now in the individual reserve who
have left the Army, begun new careers and have not even been serving
in reserve or National Guard units have now been told to expect orders
to return to active duty in the near future.
Stop-loss and the activation of the inactive reserve show how politics
has taken priority over readiness. The Pentagon uses these policies to
meet its needs in Iraq because they are expedient and ask nothing of
the civilian populace on the eve of a national election. This allows
us to put off what is sure to be a difficult debate: whether our
volunteer military is adequate to meet our foreign policy commitments.
Meanwhile, in the absence of this debate, the men and women of our
armed forces languish.
Last weekend, veterans of World War II were honored on the Mall in
Washington for their sacrifices. Our government should begin treating
the veterans of the global war on terrorism with a similar degree of
respect, not as election-year fodder.
Andrew Exum, a former Army captain, is the author of the forthcoming
"One Man's Army."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company