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The military will phase out its "stop-loss" program, the contentious practice of holding troops beyond the end of their enlistments, for all but extraordinary situations, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Wednesday.

Gates also announced at a wide-ranging news conference that the Defense Department will pay for families of fallen troops to travel to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to be present for the return of their deceased family members.

The decision to phase out stop loss by 2011 comes in combination with an announcement that soldiers affected by the program will receive a $500-a-month bonus while they are in extended service.

Currently, the Army is the only service that uses the stop-loss program. As of January, 13,217 soldiers had tours extended under the stop-loss policy.

Gates said the change is one he has wanted to implement since he became secretary of defense.

"While these changes do carry some risk, I believe it is important that we do everything possible to see that soldiers are not unnecessarily forced to stay in the Army beyond their end-of-term-of-service date," Gates said.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/18/pentag ... ss.ending/

A good move by SECDEF...

Also in the article was a mention that the DoD will now pay for family members travel to Dover to be there when a loved one's body is returned to the U.S.

dbackjon wrote:Also in the article was a mention that the DoD will now pay for family members travel to Dover to be there when a loved one's body is returned to the U.S.

Yea, I should have made "move" in my first post plural...

Both good moves...

This is good news, I have had several friends butt rammed by that program. One of them was active duty for 4 years, reserves or guards for four years, and had been out of uniform completely for 11 months and was called up to fill out casualty reports for central command for a year(?).

hank scorpio wrote:This is good news, I have had several friends butt rammed by that program. One of them was active duty for 4 years, reserves or guards for four years, and had been out of uniform completely for 11 months and was called up to fill out casualty reports for central command for a year(?).

Oh, the horror. Desk duty. Whatever shall a man do?

Further proof that W and the republicans couldn't care less about our troops. They're just meat to them.

AZGrizFan wrote:

hank scorpio wrote:This is good news, I have had several friends butt rammed by that program. One of them was active duty for 4 years, reserves or guards for four years, and had been out of uniform completely for 11 months and was called up to fill out casualty reports for central command for a year(?).

Oh, the horror. Desk duty. Whatever shall a man do?

What do you think of the move, Reuben? Are you actually willing to admit that it's a good one? Oh, the horror!