Stop Loss: The Disposable Poor, Part I
by Mark Biskeborn | February 25, 2008
‘Backdoor Draft’ is what Senator John Kerry called it, a clause in the military enlistment contract that keeps soldiers in combat involuntarily. Stop Loss is a law by which the president can stop the loss of experienced soldiers reaching the end of their hitch.
Like many other soldiers, reservist Tanya Towne learned about this clause in her contract when deployed to Iraq; her husband divorced her and took custody of her son. Now she pays $500 per month in child support on her puny reservist salary.
Since the invasion, spring 2002, some 160,000 soldiers occupy Iraq. Bush ordered a stop loss on more than 60,000 soldiers to remain in combat beyond the normal end of their enlistment. Some 180,000 private contractors, mostly Blackwater mercenaries, also supplement the US military. As incentive, the Bush Admin pays ‘mercs’ four or five times what enlisted soldiers earn.
"The use of stop loss is often an indication of a shortfall of available personnel," says Loren Thompson, a think-tank analyst in Arlington. Meaning: fewer and fewer citizens are willing to engage in the Iraqi morass.
Cases of chronic post-traumatic stress syndrome—PTSS—drastically increase as extended missions multiply. Hundreds of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have recently lapsed into violence as they attempt to readjust to the civilian world. Consider one of hundreds of cases: Matthew Sepi, a 20-year-old Iraq combat veteran, headed out to a 7-Eleven in the seedy Las Vegas neighborhood with an assault rifle under his jacket. Two armed gang-bangers wound up dead. Sepi now serves time.
The law reads like this:
"The President may suspend any provision of law relating to promotion, retirement, or separation applicable to any member of the armed forces…"
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