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Stop Loss expands to keep Soldiers in the fight

Army News Service

Release Date: 1/6/2004

By Sgt. 1st Class Marcia Triggs

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Jan. 6, 2004) - The Army is expected to announce this week that active-duty Soldiers currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan will not be allowed to separate or retire until after their unit redeploys.

Under the latest Stop Loss iteration, 7,000 Soldiers will be required to stay in the theater for the duration of their unit's deployment and up to a maximum of 90 days after the redeployment, said Col. Elton Manske, the chief of Enlisted Division, G1. The 7,000 Soldiers to be affected includes Soldiers who will not be allowed to change duty stations or exit the Army.

"The Army understands that this will probably create hardships or disrupt some plans, but this supports the interest of the United States and directly impacts our ability to win," Manske said.

Leadership in the theater and the Army staff continue to review Stop Loss, because there is no intent to keep Soldiers from moving on in their careers any longer than is necessary, he added.

Soldiers will be retained in the Army up to 90 days after the redeployment because the Army has their best interest in mind, officials said. The time should be used by Soldiers to ship their personal belongings and properly clear the Army or the installation, officials added.

In November the Army announced that active-duty Soldiers would not be allowed to voluntarily leave the Army or change duty stations if they were assigned to units that had been selected to participate in the second rotation of Operation Iraqi Freedom or the fifth rotation of Operation Enduring Freedom.

The November Stop Loss announcement also lifted the last two specialties affected by the 12-Month Skill-Based Stop Loss Program.

"We have evaluated the entire program, and we realized that putting individuals under Stop Loss based on their skills was not providing us what we needed at the unit level," Manske said. "Unit cohesion is what drove our decision to move away from skill based to unit based."

The force rotation policy that is being implemented will do away with individual replacements and serve as a means of evaluating the effectiveness of unit manning, according to Manske.

In October of last year, Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Peter Schoomaker announced that unit manning was one of 16 focus areas that would get his immediate attention. Army leadership will look for concepts that will provide greater stability to troops and their families, Schoomaker said during the annual Association of the United States Army symposium.

"There is no question that Soldiers who train and deploy together are a better fighting organization," Manske said.

Unit manning leads to unit cohesion and studies have said it leads to combat effectiveness and reduced casualties, Schoomaker said.