Involuntary soldier separations are a far cry from stop loss

My last 16 months in the Army were involuntarily served. My unit deployed to Iraq the same month I was to begin my final leave before becoming a civilian and I was stop-lossed and deployed with them. After a 13-month tour of duty I returned home, did the required transition classes and briefings, and left the Army for the civilian world. I was not happy about this extra year of service at the time - I had major life plans that were completely upended. In spite of this, I was a supporter of the stop-loss system. Service is about something more than yourself - losing people on the eve of a deployment would have been destructive to the unit since the Army personnel manning program couldn't figure out how to manage its people so that stop-loss was not necessary. That doesn't mean that being stop-lossed didn't suck. Because it did. It became a political issue, inaccurately referred to as a "back-door draft" by its opponents (usually those subjected to the policy), and President Obama ordered the end of the policy last year.

Oh my, have we come a long way from that. On Friday, the Department of Defense issued a release titled, "Changes Coming as the Army Expands Use of Early Discharge Authority of Regular Army Enlisted Members" (and you thought Ink Spots' titles were long...). Details are to follow, but the crux of the message was to say that enlisted soldiers between 3 and 6 years of active service who did not deploy with their units can be involuntarily separated 3 to 12 months before the contractual separation date. In a few years the Army has gone from involuntary extension of contracts because of deployments to don't deploy these soldiers because they don't have enough time to complete the deployment to all you guys who didn't have enough time are getting pushed off the books.

This shouldn't be a surprise. The Army is going to have to cull its force significantly as it shrinks and the operational tempo is slowing down. These soldiers are perfect candidates for separation as I can't imagine they're all gainfully employed on their unit rear detachments. I find the shift in policy, so significant and so quick, quite amazing. The Army personnel system is going to get much more interesting before it gets boring - here's hoping it's moving in the right direction. This is a good indicator that it is.

Stop loss filing deadline extended again

The Department of Defense has extended the deadline for eligible veterans to apply for Retroactive Stop Loss Special Pay (or RSLSP in DoD parlance which absolutely cannot help itself from making any and every term into an acronym - and yes, DoD parlance is a being unto itself, but I digress) until October 21, 2012. The special pay was authorized in the 2009 War Supplemental Appropriations Act to pay stop-lossed soldiers $500 for every month they were stop-lossed. But in spite of continuous extension for veterans to file for the special pay, DoD has paid out only a fraction of the approximately 145,000 eligible veterans have applied. As Juliet Beyler, acting director of Officer and Enlisted Personnel Management, said in the press release: "Even with extensive outreach efforts, and tremendous support from the President, Congress, the VA, veteran and military service organizations, and friends and family around the world, some qualified individuals have not yet applied." If you think you're eligible for it - apply now. If you know someone you think might be eligible for it, tell them to go apply now. For once, DoD is extending a deadline for the right reason. Take advantage of it - you've earned it.

Go get your money, dammit*

DoD has announced that the latest deadline to file to claim retroactive stop-loss pay is 1 month away: 21 October 2011. So all of you who were stop-lossed (or survivor of someone who was), please go claim your money as only half of the allocated funds have been claimed. I'm surprised at how much has gone unclaimed. I was expecting something much more like this:

I know some people have a hard time with it (ahem, Carl), but after a couple of early hurdles, mine was payed without any real problems or even a lot of time expended. You've earned this money so go get it. But you don't have to take my word for it.

*Thanks to Robert Caruso for pointing this out.

Ryan Phillipe ain't the only one pissed off about stop-loss

(Just for the record, I had to Google to see who was in that movie. I thought it was Timberlake. It probably would've been funnier if I'd written it that way.)

The AP is reporting that a kid from Fort Stewart has been arrested after rapping about how getting stop-lossed was gonna make him shoot up a bunch of people with an M-4, including his brigade and battalion commanders.

Angry that the military planned to send him back to Iraq past his date to leave the military, a Fort Stewart soldier recorded a hip-hop song that blasts the Army and describes going on a shooting spree, an act that led his commanders to decide that the soldier posed a threat to his unit.

The infantry soldier, Spc. Marc A. Hall, has been jailed on criminal charges in Liberty County, Ga., for the past month for a song and other statements that one of his lawyers insists were simply a form of protest.

"They're saying it's a threat. We're saying it's a fantasy," said Jim Klimaski, a Washington civilian attorney who has talked to Hall about the case. "He's mad, but he's not stupid. He's not violent."

The article doesn't say how old Spc. Hall is, but I figure he's probably 21 or 22, considering his enlistment date. Let's be serious: 21-year old kids are dumb. And as Schmedlap has noted, 21-year old kids in the Army like to bitch about everything. Now don't get me wrong, getting stop-lossed will cramp your style, so this isn't just like complaining about the food. But dude, didn't it occur to you that six weeks after a shooting rampage on an Army base probably wasn't the best time to rap about a shooting rampage on an Army base?

Hall posted the song, called "Stop Loss," on his Web site. Klimaski said he also played it for many soldiers in his unit, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division.

On the recording, Hall denounces the Army for the policy used to keep thousands of soldiers in the ranks beyond their scheduled dates to leave the military. He also raps about opening fire with his military-issue M-4 rifle.

"I got a (expletive) magazine with 30 rounds, on a three-round burst, ready to fire down," Hall raps on the recording. "Still against the wall, I grab my M-4, spray and watch all the bodies hit the floor.

"I bet you never stop-loss nobody no more, in your next lifetime of course. No remorse."

I wonder how that remorse thing is going now.

Seriously though, even considering the Hasan thing, how do you feel about the way that the Army's handling this? It's probably a little reactionary, yeah, but can they afford to take chances with stuff like this? He's mad about still being in the Army, and about being in Iraq again, and he's armed and has the freedom to use weapons, and that could pose a danger to his fellow soliders... but doesn't that go for a number of guys who are equally pissed-off and just never vented about it on YouTube? Dude's life is gonna be pretty well ruined whether he goes to the slammer or just gets dishonorably discharged without further punishment, and all because he got pissed off and went all Eminem on everyone. Fair?

Gunslinger, did laying down an angry track ever occur to you when you got stop-lossed? I guess the kid should've just blogged about it.

UPDATE: Whoops, I am dumb and Madhu is very smart. Turns out this guy is 34 -- it says so in the article -- and he's just acting like a retarded 21-year old. My bad.