Stop-loss likely to last into fall 2009

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Stop-loss orders
More than 12,000 barred from leaving service.


Stop-loss likely to last into fall 2009
By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday May 3, 2008 7:51:18 EDT

Last year’s surge of five combat brigades into Iraq helped drive a 43-percent increase in soldiers being barred from leaving the service under stop-loss orders, and Army leaders predict the policy will remain in place at least through next year. However, they expressed optimism that the numbers will ebb as surge forces redeploy.

More than 12,230 soldiers are under stop-loss orders, compared to 8,540 in May 2007, during the surge. But the 30,000 combat troops that were part of the surge are in the process of coming home, and the Army is returning to 12-month deployments Aug. 1. Because soldiers are placed under stop-loss as members of deploying units, reducing the numbers sent to war reduces the numbers involuntarily held.

“As the (war zone) demand comes down, we should be able to get us weaned off stop-loss,” said Lt. Gen. James Thurman, the Army G-3.

Under stop-loss policies, active-duty soldiers within 90 days of retirement or obligated service are barred from leaving the Army if they are in units alerted for deployment. Reservists and National Guard members are barred from leaving if their units have been alerted for mobilization.

Thurman said he hoped the Army could end stop-loss by fall 2009. In March 2005, 15,758 soldiers fell under stop-loss orders, the most for any month between November 2004 and March 2008, according to Army data. The numbers stayed between 10,000 and 13,000 for about two years after that and fell to an all-time low of 8,540 in May 2007. But the trend reversed the next month as the last of the five surge brigades flowed into Iraq and soldiers settled into 15-month tours.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/army_stoploss_050308/