Stop-Loss

[Malevolent]

Recently the MN national guard got deployed out to Iraq again and with the up comming release of the movie Stop-Loss MTV is coming to MN to have a pre-release viewing of the movie.

Who knows what stop-loss is and do you agree with it or disagree with it. From some of the reviews I've read it seems once again they're is covering the bad side of being in the service during a war.

[BurningPanther]

Re: Stop-Loss

I know all about stop-loss, and while I don't necessarily like it, I can occasionally see the necessity.

My issue with it comes when stop-loss is initiated after having made measures to downsize manpower, as the Air Force has been doing for the past five years.

Of course, the Air Force is making no attempt to stop personnel from leaving, so it's a non-issue. Branches like the Marines and Army, however, are a completely different animal. They simply can't get enough bodies, and word is that they're suffering an all-time low, so it doesn't surprise me that stop-loss would be instituted.

I think the theme of the film paints kind of an un-pretty picture, but to be honest, films like these need to come along every once in a while. The armed forces is on the whole a generally good gig, but it's important to be reminded that not everything's alright.

I think the movie should be seen less as a criticism of the armed forces in and of themselves, but rather an indictment of the current administration that puts it's forces in such a strained position that stop-loss might become necessary.

[Malevolent]

Re: Stop-Loss

They simply can't get enough bodies, and word is that they're suffering an all-time low, so it doesn't surprise me that stop-loss would be instituted.

See I don't think they're at a low personel count. My youngest brother just enlisted and he waited 4 months before he could go into boot camp because from aug-jan the bases in the US were full and the army had to put a stop on putting guys in boot camps.

I understand movies like this may have to show up every once in awhile...but how many movies do you see in theaters showing all the good thats been happening over there? You don't...they just go straight to DVD and never heard of again except for a few indie gurus out there. Again...sensationalism at its finest...

[Kitalrez]

Re: Stop-Loss

Stop-loss is the policy of mandatory extension of a soldier's enlistment contract to prevent loss to the unit of his or her skills during a wartime situation. It's basically taking advantage of a clause in the enlistment contract that allows the government to deprive you of certain civil rights because it needs you to operate along established military customs. I would imagine the movie is covering the effects of this policy on soldiers' families.

My former reserve company has a problem with this program. A lot of the reservists in the company are Engineers in their civilian lives. The reserve company itself is Marine Infantry. Engineering pays a lot better than being a marine in a combat zone. There's also the aspect of not getting shot or killed. As such, many marines were hoping to leave the service at the end of their contracts. Stop-loss orders would prevent this. Being deployed already prevents you from working a high paying job which in turn has lead many of these marines to be unable to make house payments or put their kids through college. Putting a mandatory extension on top of this really just adds to the burden. There are a lot of people I used to know who will be in horrible debt or be unable to get/hold any kind of financial job after this war.

[LilithAngel]

Re: Stop-Loss

My issue with it comes when stop-loss is initiated after having made measures to downsize manpower, as the Air Force has been doing for the past five years.

I've been seeing and feeling the effects of this these past five years personally, as manning issues have been a strain on work at several bases, including the ones I've been to (Spangdahlem, Ramstein, Vogelweigh, Kaiserslaughtern, Misawa, and Yokota). It's even worse in places like Osan and Kunsan. We've been working under the theme of "do more with less" both in terms of equipment and personnel for a while now. It's certainly possible, but that by no means makes it any more bearable.

The Air Force is just (more or less) starting to initiate stop-loss in various AFSCs (civilian: jobs), and critically-manned ones are being filled in with inexperienced, fresh troops from tech schools, as well as involuntary retraining of people in career fields that aren't as critical. It's some tumultuous times.

However, I wouldn't trade my time in the Air Force for anything. The benefits are solid, and the ability to do many things I'd never be able to do as a civilian more than makes up for the occasional ass-pain of dealing with the random BS that can come up from time to time. Indeed, I'll walk away from my time in service with many memories that I'll treasure forever.

I do believe, however, that our time in Iraq is more or less up. Hopefully whoever the next President will be will see fit to agree with that.

[eticket109]

Re: Stop-Loss

I can see both sides of it I suppose. It's hard to really support it based on the current conflict and the overall mishandling of the military in general as of late.

[Wise Donkey]

Re: Stop-Loss

I can't say I like the Army's answer to its recruitment issues. Their current solution (aside from Stop-Loss) is to throw more money at young people and slacken recruitment requirements by signing waivers for felonies, drug use, and a lack of high school education. The ramifications of these practices is years from coming to full fruition, but when it does, it will be a black mark in military history, and will be very hard to recover from.

[Dahc]

Re: Stop-Loss

As a member of the US Air Force, I would say that stop loss is one of those two sided situations to which the Government as a whole has put the military into the position that they are having to use it as a means to an end. The military has spent so much money in the last few years on upgrading it's equipment that they had to draw down on some of its funding, so what do they do?They innnitiate a draw down of forces, get rid of enough folks to afford the weapons and equipment needed. Now after they start the draw down along comes 9-11 and we end up deploying, putting a strain on the personnel that are left to handle the workload of those that were released due to the draw down. Now the military finds itself in a position of where they have to complete the draw down to comply with the need for funds, all the while having to handle the extra load of deploying and surge operations. SO what is the most logical step, stop loss those that are due to get out under normal situations, to cover the manning needs and to pull the weight of workload left by those that were forced out of the military under the draw down. I can see the need for stop loss, but if it wouldn't have been for the excessive need for more troops in Iraq for susch a longer period of time then there would not have been the need for stop loss. Yes stop loss sucks, but what about the rest of the members of the Armed forces that have to pick up the slack for those getting forced out? If not for stop loss the workload could become overwhelming, because of the poor light that is cast upon the military right now due to the war, recruitment of new people has gone down so whoever is left have to bear the weight of accomplishing the mission, with or without the help of stop loss end up being over worked and the mission falters due to lack of manning and overworking of those that remain