NYT: "Eight Soldiers Plan to Sue Over Army's Stop-Loss Policy"

In recent months, at any given moment, the stop-loss policy has affected about 7,000 soldiers who had been planning to retire, leave the military or move to a different military job. The rule affects soldiers whose enlistments are scheduled to end within 90 days before their unit is deployed, those already deployed, and those whose term would end up to 90 days after their unit returns. On Friday, Army officials said they did not know the total number who had been affected so far. No date has been announced to end the policy.

Jules Lobel, a lawyer for one of the eight soldiers, described the central complaint this way: They were fraudulently induced to sign up, Mr. Lobel said, because nothing in their enlistment contract mentioned that they might be involuntarily kept on.

The "stop-loss" policy is little more than a small-scale, camouflaged draft. Soldiers are being forced to serve involuntarily in combat zones, not because that was part of the contract the signed upon enlisting, but simply because it suits the Pentagon's needs to compell them to do so.

Men and women whose contractual obligations to the military have been served up to THREE MONTHS before their units ever even deploy for the Middle East are forced into conscription for the entire term of their unit's deployment abroad. Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, an Army spokeswoman, sums it up: "The units deploy together, train together, fight together and come home together."

America is proud of its all-volunteer army, and rightly points out the tremendous benefits in having willing, professional military men and women serving. Although the Pentagon waves the flag of "unit cohesion" to justify the stop-loss order, is there any reason to think that a willing, enthusiastic rookie who is serving of her own volition will be any less solid than an veteran whose morale is in the toilet because his government has coerced him into service against the terms of the contract he signed with it?

The right solution is to offer incentives to soldiers willing to stay on beyond their terms of service. Rewarding them for their faithfulness in a dangerous time is an honorable thing. But those who have completed all the requirements of their enlistment should be allowed to retire according to their contracts if they do not desire to re-enlist. That is the way a contract works, and that is the way a volunteer military works, too. Every day these thousands of soldiers are forced to risk life and limb in violation of the contract THE GOVERNMENT WROTE and they signed is another black mark on the honor of our nation.