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| Army Issues Order to Stop U.S. Soldiers from Leaving |
| 2004-06-02 |
| EFL The U.S. Army has issued an order preventing thousands of soldiers designated for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan from leaving the military even when their volunteer service commitment expires, officials said on Wednesday. Here is where I have a question... The move to extend the service of some soldiers involuntarily was the latest sign of increasing stress on the Army as the Pentagon strives to maintain adequate troop levels in the two conflicts. Is this "increasing stress" a |
| Posted by:Dragon Fly |
| #18 Remember the Kennedy Year? Back in '62, just after turning down the chance to serve in a "friendly foreign country" and get combat pay (!) a lot of my outfit had their enlistment extended a year COG (convenience of the government). When you sign up to serve, you get to serve-- sometimes a little longer than you had planned. |
| Posted by: Anonymous5101 2004-06-02 11:30:23 PM |
| #17 nice list of first boarding party on the Ship Of Fools, Ruprecht BTW - the link to your site doesn't work |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-06-02 9:06:54 PM |
| #16 Can someone explain why we are restocking the draft boards instead of just abolishing them? Military doesn't want draftees, the board can be created ad hoc faster than we could implement a full scale draft anyway. What's the point? |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-06-02 9:01:00 PM |
| #15 Okay, I take that back, there are numerous cosponsers, all of whom are far left of center. Rep Abercrombie, Neil - 1/7/2003 [HI-1] Rep Brown, Corrine - 1/28/2003 [FL-3] Rep Christensen, Donna M. - 5/19/2004 [VI] Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy - 1/28/2003 [MO-1] Rep Conyers, John, Jr. - 1/7/2003 [MI-14] Rep Cummings, Elijah E. - 1/28/2003 [MD-7] Rep Hastings, Alcee L. - 1/28/2003 [FL-23] Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila - 1/28/2003 [TX-18] Rep Lewis, John - 1/7/2003 [GA-5] Rep McDermott, Jim - 1/7/2003 [WA-7] Rep Moran, James P. - 1/28/2003 [VA-8] Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes - 1/28/2003 [DC] Rep Stark, Fortney Pete - 1/7/2003 [CA-13] Rep Velazquez, Nydia M. - 1/28/2003 [NY-12] |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-06-02 7:13:48 PM |
| #14 Um, regarding those draft bills. Snowballs chance in hell. Military doesn't want the draft. Draft age people don't want the draft. Baby boomers saw the draft and don't want it. That leaves Rengal and Hollings. Two votes isn't gonna cut it. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-06-02 7:10:20 PM |
| #13 OMG, I go away for awhile because we had a power failure here in my city for 18 hours and RB gets taken over by Leftist trolls! OIF is going fine--it's just that the Pentagon is not going to rotate people out (We just did a major troop rotation, the largest since WWII, a few months ago) and take them out of the theater of battle at one of the most crucial times of the mission. We've got to get Iraq through the transition and beyond. Who knows what the Bad Guys will do once the transition happens? We don't need a draft. We may need to re-create more divisions in our Armed Forces--you know, the ones Crinton dissolved to "balance the budget" and create more of a (false) surplus. One of our logistical problems at the moment is that it takes awhile to train today's combat ready soldier and we're using most of our trained people now. It was an unseen situation before 9/11. Even if we got a draft tonight, the troops wouldn't be trained and ready to go to Iraq and Afghanistan anytime soon. The Left would love to have the draft so that they could then use it as a big club to bash Bush and start their John Kerry/Jane Fonda/Woodstock/Chicago '68 crap again. |
| Posted by: Jen 2004-06-02 5:19:48 PM |
| #12 Geez, you guys and your spin. These guys want out. The Pentagon is in over their heads with this abortion in the sand, and our guys don't want to participate in this folly any more. If you signed up for 4 years, you expect to get out in 4 years - "cushy" position or not. If the US were in danger, like in WWII, it would make sense. We're not even marginally at risk - never were - with Iraq. Here's a non-Reuters (AP-sourced) link for you spin doctors: http://tinyurl.com/3ala7 |
| Posted by: The Other Mike S. 2004-06-02 4:46:54 PM |
| #11 rex #6 Long URLs screw up the margin and make the whole page hard to read. Try this to reduce the length of the internet addresses... http://tinyurl.com/ Hmmm... moot reuters... I like it. |
| Posted by: Larry Everett 2004-06-02 2:19:23 PM |
| #10 The fact remains that their are currently 2 bi-partisan supported bills sitting on the Congressional back burners which call for the re-institution of the draft in early 2005 after the November election. Neither of which have a snowball's chance in Key West of becoming law. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-06-02 2:18:58 PM |
| #9 They changed the period of service obligation from 8 to 10 years back in the late 80s, early 90s. |
| Posted by: Don 2004-06-02 2:05:48 PM |
| #8 Unless they've changed things since I was in, there's no such thing as "involuntary" service. Its part of the contract you sign. In my case, it was an 8 year committment, a portion of which was served on active duty, the balance in something called "Individual Ready Reserve." One could (and I was, for Desert Storm) be recalled to active duty off IRR at any time. As I understand it, this sort of thing is part of the contract as well. Even if you've fulfilled every day of the time you signed up for, if Uncle Sam has a compelling reason to keep you beyond your period of enlistment, he can. Its all written down, and none of it is "involuntary." If you don't like the terms of the contract, don't sign it! |
| Posted by: mva30 2004-06-02 1:54:29 PM |
| #7 Isn't this a variant of the "stop loss" orders that have been out for a while, as they were during Desert Storm. Neither an alternate reality or a big deal, but worth reporting. |
| Posted by: VAMark 2004-06-02 12:39:17 PM |
| #6 Whether Reuters is spinning the "increasing stress" on the Army is a moot point. The fact remains that their are currently 2 bi-partisan supported bills sitting on the Congressional back burners which call for the re-institution of the draft in early 2005 after the November election. One is H.R. 163 and the other is S.89: http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR00163:@@@L&summ2=m&%3E%20%20-%20S.89%20%3Chttp://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:SN00089: http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:SN00089: |
| Posted by: rex 2004-06-02 12:37:28 PM |
| #5 Folks should also remember that anybody who enlists has something called a military service obligation of six years,regardless of the length of the enlistment. Most of those who hit the stop loss list already owe the government the time. Last itme I checked there was a standing list of several thousand retirees willing to accept recall. Recruiters/reenlistment are hitting their numbers...where is the story? |
| Posted by: TopMac 2004-06-02 12:37:01 PM |
| #4 Rereading the story it sounds like normally short timers get cushy stateside duty when their units go overseas. This is no longer going to happen. Not really a big deal, although I'm sure a few short timers and families aren't happy about it. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-06-02 12:05:53 PM |
| #3 As soon as I saw "reuters.html" in the referring URL, I knew all I needed to know. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-06-02 12:01:21 PM |
| #2 The military has hit all of their reenlistment numbers. This report seems to come from an alternate reality. More likely it is mean to say that tours in Iraq and Afghanistan are extended, not that the actual enlistement term has been extended which would seem illegal to me. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-06-02 11:57:19 AM |
| #1 Now we're going to hear the Kerry screamers: "The Draft! The Draft!" Why is the Army having trouble with adequate numbers? |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2004-06-02 11:47:24 AM |