Stop-Loss is the way to go

In 2003 Army Officials and the President of the United States approved a stop loss policy to keep soldiers from leaving the service. The policy is an involuntary extension of a soldier enlistment terms to prevent them from leaving immediately before a combat tour or in the middle of a deployment in support of Iraq or Afghanistan operations. This action is extremely necessary to ensure Army units keep their integrity and readiness to go to combat. Soldiers under the stop-loss policy are soldiers whose enlistment time ends during a combat tour or are within 90 days of a combat tour. Today, over 58,000 soldiers have been subject to the involuntary extension and still growing. As an Army Major and former Battery and Company commander I witnessed how the unit combat readiness is greatly affected when a soldier leaves the unit. We, the military, spend hours, days and months focusing on combat operations training with the common goal of responding the call to defend our nation when is needed. Our Army is composed by a volunteer force, meaning that no one is obligated to be in the team, the soldiers that are here is because they want to serve our country. At the time a person joins the Army, they are informed that their service contract can be involuntary extended in support of the nations needs. So, it should be no surprise to any soldier when the decision was made. Many people are against the stop-loss policy and it has created a huge military, political and social dispute. Some people look at it as an insult to the soldiers, some others look at it as a brutal way to manipulate the soldier life and some others will considered it as a draft. The bottom line is that I support the stop loss policy because is effective and is in direct support of the security of our nation which is mainly the responsibility of the military.

MAJ Jesus R. Lugo, Command and General Staff College U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, Fort Lee, Virginia.

** The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government **