Soldiers subjected to stop-loss orders are often those whose enlistment period ends during a combat tour or who are due to leave within 90 days of the scheduled start of a combat tour. Without the stop-loss policy, the Army would have to replace those soldiers with new ones who had not trained with the unit.
Between 2002 and 2007, 58,300 soldiers were given stop-loss orders, forcing them to remain in the service past the end of their enlistment periods.
The number of soldiers serving under the stop-loss program will begin to decline again in September, Gates said. By then, there will be fewer U.S. troops in Iraq and Army combat tours will return to 12 months.
Army officials could not predict when they would no longer need to resort to stop-loss orders. But as troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan shrink, the policy will become less necessary, officials say.
The Army first used a stop-loss program in 1990 during the run-up to the Persian Gulf War. In 2002, the Army instituted stop-loss orders for certain specialties, a policy that ended in 2003. The current stop-loss program was put in place just before the invasion of Iraq.
Gates said that about half of the soldiers kept in the Army under the stop-loss policy are noncommissioned officers who hold important leadership positions, at the rank of sergeant and above, and cannot easily be replaced.
"And so if you pull them, if they left a unit, it would leave a pretty gaping hole while still deployed," Gates said.
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julian.barnes@latimes.com
