look, they probably wouldn't have been needed at all if bush didn't try to lowball the american public and try to go to war on the cheap, leading the chaos after. you remember his jive when he was trying to sell us on the war right? oh it'll be so cheap, we'll fund it and the reconstruction with the free flowin iraqi oil after we're in. and we don't need no stinkin mass of soldiers, just a few, the iraqi's will greet us with hugs and kisses! now we are pulling reserves left and right and stressing them to the brink to make up for his blunder. the reserve is really for protecting america when we really are in deep sh*t. dipping into it to cover for carelessness is just a great way to destroy moral and the trust of the soldiers. we are totally mired down, responding to any other situations that should arise is now impossible. so north korea and iran just thumb their noses at us and build their nukes
i do remember bush declaring the war over on an aircraft carrier
then he screamed "bring it on"(attacks on our soldiers) to the militants. rather brave of him being that he dodged combat when it was his time(like cheney). really nice for your commander to egg on the enemy to kill you.
and now we send our last resort"emergency" units into danger. people who are fathers and mothers, people with families to support. bush is seriously abusing our reserve units.
And the Pentagon is handing out so-called "stop-loss" orders -- literally stopping the loss of troops by preventing volunteer soldiers from leaving the service, even after they've fulfilled their obligations.
"We are essentially imposing a mini-draft, or a draft by any other name, on people in the military who had no reason to think they would have to stay in many cases and are being told they must stay," O'Hanlon explains.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...unday/main620263.shtml
One of the MLTF's current activities is a lawsuit on behalf of a guardsman challenging the legality of the current stop-loss mobilization. Among its arguments, the MLTF plans to show that stop-loss is only allowable in national emergency, and the current Iraq situation has more to do with poor planning by the Bush administration than any real threat to national security. "Since the coup in Iraq, since the United States put in its own government there, to suggest that we're there to protect ourselves is now nonsense," Hiken said. (Details of the suit may be found at www.sorgen.net.) A very interesting thing about that suit, Marti Hiken said, "was the support of a large number of people inside the military, and we're talking brass, officers, not just the GIs themselves. The military is divided in terms of what's going on right now."
"The reserves are people who go in expecting to be in for a short period of time, being called up for floods or fires or earthquakes or serious and significant emergencies, or war if we were being attacked," said Luke Hiken. "But to say to these people, 'We've gotcha, and now you're in indefinitely, and you signed up voluntarily,' they know that's outrageous."
http://www.austinchronicle.com...10-08/pols_naked9.html
A decorated Army captain asked a judge yesterday to bar the military from sweeping him up in a "back-door draft" and shipping him off to Iraq on Monday.
Jay Ferriola, a 31-year-old Manhattan resident, handed in his resignation in June after eight years of active and reserve duty, according to the suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
But even though his commanding officer recommended that he be granted a discharge, the military never sent out the paperwork, the suit says, and on Tuesday, Ferriola got orders dated Oct. 8 sending him to war.
Ferriola's suit says the order in unconsitutional and amounts to "involuntary servitude." "I complied with my obligation," he said. "I never intended to make a career of the Army. I want to pursue other careers in civilian life."
Attorney Barry Slotnick said Ferriola, a registered Republican, is not motivated by fear or opposition to the war but wants the Army to uphold the contract it signed with him in 1993. "He has served his country heroically and patriotically," Slotnick said.
Judge Robert Sweet granted him an emergency hearing tomorrow.
The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment on Ferriola's lawsuit but will represent the government at the hearing.
A 1995 graduate of the officer training program at the Virginia Military Institute, Ferriola served as an officer in South Korea's demilitarized zone and in Germany. He won three commendations for meritorious service.
In February 2003, he was called to active duty in Iraq but never deployed. He spent five months with his military police unit at Fort Dix, N.J., and then was released to the reserves. He resigned a year later on June 17, 2004.
On Tuesday he received orders telling him to report for active duty with the 306th Military Police Battalion in Uniondale, L.I., for 18 months of service in Iraq. It's unclear why Ferriola was never formally discharged.
The Army has issued "stop loss" orders that prevent soldiers from leaving the military when their service is up, but Ferriola's suit says neither he nor his unit received such orders.
"At no time prior to his resignation or during the pendency of his resignation was Mr. Ferriola ever informed that he or his unit were on alert or placed under stop-loss," the suit says. "He was asked to turn in his issue equipment and was told that he was no longer required to report for monthly drills."
Ferriola was greeted by a phalanx of reporters outside the Manhattan Federal Courthouse yesterday, but the athletically built soldier charged passed television camera operators and did not comment as he returned to a waiting car. http://www.rense.com/general58/back.htm
http://www.nydailynews.com/new...y/245275p-210124c.html
But that all changed when the Defense Department issued a "stop loss" order forcing some members of the country's volunteer armed forces to remain in service beyond their contractually agreed-upon term.
The ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are severely stretching the armed forces, a situation that some experts suggest may grow far worse within the next two years.
"In a year and a half or two years, there are going to be huge [personnel] shortages," said Andrew Exum, a retired Army captain who served in Afghanistan. "You can't keep these guys in for good."
Exum and others are worried that the stop-loss orders could dissuade current service members from re-enlisting and reduce new enlistments.
"The biggest effect will be on those who might have re-enlisted," Exum said. "The senior non-coms and majors and colonels are not going anywhere, but they are not the ones fighting this war," he said of the enlisted volunteers who make up the bulk of the fighting force.
The Pentagon issued its latest stop-loss order in June, forcing thousands of men and women to stay in the military and requiring many to return to combat duty well beyond their agreed-upon period of active service. The effect of the order has been that thousands of members of the all-volunteer armed forces no longer are serving voluntarily.
"The stop-loss is having a tremendous impact on morale," said Charles Moskos, a sociology professor at Northwestern University who specializes in the military [and recently met with U.S. soldiers in Baghdad].
The latest stop-loss order was bolstered by a separate decision to recall 5,600 members of the 111,000-strong Individual Ready Reserve, soldiers who, like Exum, have completed their specified period of active duty but remain on reserve status until their contractual commitment is completed.
Exum says that if he had been ordered back to service, he would have served. But he still feels that the stop-loss orders, while probably legal, are fundamentally unfair and are done as a less objectionable way to maintain force numbers than returning to a draft.
http://www.military.com/NewsCo...FL_loss_092704,00.html
and a bit more here http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007658.html