During a press conference today, Secretary of State
Robert Gates was asked whether he foresaw an end to the practice
of stop-loss — where military personnel can be forced to
remain in the military even after completing their enlistment
terms — by 2009. “No, I don’t,” Gates
replied, though he added that he opposes the policy, which many
soldiers call a “backdoor draft,” and will work to
end it:
As I’ve indicated before, I’ve pressed on stop-loss
ever since I got this job because I don’t like it. But
a significant percentage of those who are stop-lossed are NCOs
[Non-Commissioned Officers] and the concern of the Army is that
if you don’t use stop-loss you end up gutting a unit of
its experienced leadership. But I hope that fairly soon, and
especially with the draw-downs in Iraq, that we will begin to
see a further decline in stop-loss.
Watch it:
Between May 2007 and March 2008, “the number
of soldiers forced to remain in the Army rose 43% to 12,235.”
