http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=61432WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army plans to eliminate the wide use of stop loss by March 2011 and compensate those who are stop-lossed, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.
“Effective this month, the department will provide special compensation, of $500 per month to soldiers who have been stop-lossed,” Gates said at a news conference. “This special compensation will be applied retroactively to Oct. 1, 2008, the date when Congress first made it available.”
“Our goal is to cut the number of those stop-lossed by 50 percent by June 2010, and to eliminate the regular use of stop loss across the entire Army by March 2011,” Gates said.
The Defense Department will retain the ability to use stop loss in emergency situations, he said.
As of Jan. 31, there are 13, 217 soldiers under stop loss — 7,307 in the Active Component; 4,458 in the Army National Guard; and 1,452 in the Army Reserve, said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver.
Under the plan approved by Gates, the Army Reserve in August will begin mobilizing units that don’t include stop-lossed soldiers and the Guard in September will do the same, a senior Army official said on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made.
The active duty Army is to deploy its first unit without stop loss in January, he said.
One reason stop loss can be phased out is the Army is expected to reach its active-duty end-strength of 547,000 ahead of schedule, Gates said. The Army’s success at retention and the drawdown in Iraq have also made it possible to end use of stop-loss.
Some critics have called stop loss a backdoor draft because it keeps troops in the military beyond their retirement or re-enlistment dates. But the military has said it’s a necessary tool to keep unit cohesion in times of war and to keep soldiers with certain skills needed in those units.
Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who chairs a powerful House subcommittee that funds the military, also said Wednesday that the military has agreed to begin payments to troops, and that more money is coming.
“We will continue to work with the Defense Department to eliminate stop loss, and to provide compensation to the nearly 185,000 servicemembers who have been held under stop-loss orders since September 11, 2001,” Murtha said in a statement.
Though the practice has been virtually ended in the other service branches, the Army said it still needed to use it because of the severe strain it has is under to find troops for the two ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to Pentagon documents obtained by the Associated Press, the intent is to cut the number of stop-loss soldiers in half by sometime next year, and to eventually stop the use of the program when it is feasible.
One official said they believe they can gradually reduce the number of stop-loss soldiers because of the drawdown in Iraq, because the Army has grown and because they are changing the way new units rotate — something that gives units scheduled for combat more time to get the people with the skills they need as opposed to holding in service soldiers who have that skill.
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