Just_A_Mom
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/03/ap_stop_loss_031809/
This has to make a lot of people happy, though it can't come soon enough. Folks, this is just another example of Uncle Sam breaking contracts with those who are sacrificing for their country.
Soldiers under stop-loss orders will begin receiving a $500 monthly allowance on April 1, Army officials said Wednesday.
The announcement followed a briefing at the Pentagon where Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he has approved a plan to eliminate stop-loss by March 2011 and pay $500 a month to soldiers under those orders.
The $500 monthly payments will be retroactive to Oct. 1, 2008. Eligible soldiers who are no longer under stop-loss orders will get their money in a lump sum, and that money will be paid in May and June, at the latest, said Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle, the Army G-1.
Each monthly payment is tax-free if soldiers are in the war zone and taxable if they are in the U.S., said Col. Larry Lock, the division chief for compensation and entitlements. The same rules apply to soldiers who receive a lump-sum amount, he said.
On average, soldiers are under stop-loss orders for five to eight months, said Maj. Gen. Gina Farrisee, director of military personnel management.
The plan to eliminate stop-loss calls for the Army Reserve to begin mobilizing units without stop-loss in August, with the Army National Guard to follow in September. Gates said the active Army will begin deploying units without stop-loss in January 2010.
The goal is to cut stop-loss by 50 percent by June 2010 and eliminate the practice by March 2011, Gates said.
About 13,200 soldiers are now under stop-loss orders, which involuntarily extends soldiers beyond the end of their enlistments or retirement dates in units deploying to combat.
About 7,300 of the stop-lossed soldiers are in the active Army, 4,458 in the Guard and 1,452 in the Reserve. Most of them are E-4s and E-5s, and the majority of soldiers under stop-loss orders are in combat arms, followed by those in logistics specialties, Farrisee said.
The Army will still be able to use stop-loss in case of an emergency, Gates said, but predicted it would be for small numbers of individuals with specific skills.
“I just felt there will probably always be a need to do this with a relatively small number of people with specific skills, but I’d like to get it down to scores rather than thousands,” he said.
The five-brigade surge into Iraq, beginning in January 2007, caused the number of soldiers under stop-loss orders to surge as well, Gates said.
“My question is the surge is over, why isn’t [stop-loss] going down?” he said. “We have the … authority to do it, but I would just tell you I felt, particularly in these numbers, that it was breaking faith.”
A combination of factors is allowing the Army to work toward eliminating stop-loss, including the anticipated reduction of troops in Iraq and the Army’s achievement of its targeted end-strength of 547,400, Rochelle said.
“We would be off stop-loss tomorrow were it not for the demand for Army forces worldwide,” he said.
The monthly payments will be funded by the $72 million provided to the Army by Congress for fiscal 2009, Rochelle said, adding that he has received assurances that additional funding will follow if needed.
The Army also is hammering out new incentives to encourage soldiers in deploying units to stay in the Army, Farrisee said. She did not have details Wednesday, but said there will be monetary incentives and also an option for soldiers to extend for just the length of their upcoming deployment.
When asked why it took so long for the Army to come up with this plan, Rochelle said that it was a complex problem, and second- and third-order effects on readiness, soldiers and families that would result from any policy had to be identified and examined.
“We know that this has been a hardship,” he said about stop-loss. “Unfortunately it was a necessary hardship. Now we have a window of opportunity … to take that burden off the backs of our soldiers and their families.”
This has to make a lot of people happy, though it can't come soon enough. Folks, this is just another example of Uncle Sam breaking contracts with those who are sacrificing for their country.
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