The Pentagon announced yesterday that it would be phasing out its controversial "stop-loss" program, which forces soldiers to serve even after their enlistments end. Army Reserve and National Guard troops will be mobilized without stop loss beginning in August and September 2009, and the regular Army will deploy its first units without stop-loss in early 2010. There are about 13,000 soldiers being kept past their enlistments. In the meantime, soldiers serving under stop-loss will be receiving a monthly payment of 500 dollars. It seems pretty far away now that the war in Iraq is coming to an end, but stop-loss was once a very political issue because of the stress it puts on service members and families, and the notion that part of the reason the war in Iraq had gone so badly was that the Bush administration didn't use enough troops. Many people felt that stop-loss compounded the sacrifice already focused on the select few who had chosen to serve. -- A. Serwer
