Dick Foster of the Rocky Mountain News on GIs claim threat by Army: Soldiers say they were told to re-enlist or face deployment to Iraq:
Soldiers from a Fort Carson combat unit say they have been issued an ultimatum – re-enlist for three more years or be transferred to other units expected to deploy to Iraq.
What a great way to maintain morale in today's multiple front, deployment heavy military! Someone failed Leadership 101 at the academy.
A Fort Carson spokesman confirmed the re-enlistment drive is under way and one of the soldiers provided the form to the Rocky Mountain News. An Army spokesmen denied, however, that soldiers who don’t re-enlist with the brigade were threatened.
The form, if signed, would bind the soldier to the 3rd Brigade until Dec. 31, 2007. The two soldiers said they were told that those who did not sign would be transferred out of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team.
“They said if you refuse to re-enlist with the 3rd Brigade, we’ll send you down to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is going to Iraq for a year, and you can stay with them, or we’ll send you to Korea, or to Fort Riley (in Kansas) where they’re going to Iraq,” said one of the soldiers, a sergeant.
I can definitely see this happening, contrary to the denials of the Army public relations person, who gets paid by the Army to say whatever the Army tells him to say. A favorite tactic by some misguided souls in the Marine Corps was for "lifers" to gang-up on Marines who are in the last year of an enlistment by questioning the person's loyalty to his country or by telling the individual that he'll never be able to transition back to civilian life, etc., etc., etc. Its ineffective as a means of re-enlistment tactic, but some idiots do it anyway.
What this Fort Carson unit is doing to troops who've already been to Iraq for one deployment, however, requires far more balls than anything I've ever seen. And it is going to hurt morale and may drive even more men and women out of uniform in the long run.
The second soldier, an enlisted man who was interviewed separately, essentially echoed that view.
“They told us if we don’t re-enlist, then we’d have to be reassigned. And where we’re most needed is in units that are going back to Iraq in the next couple of months. So if you think you’re getting out, you’re not,” he said.
The brigade’s presentation outraged many soldiers who are close to fulfilling their obligation and are looking forward to civilian life, the sergeant said.
“We have a whole platoon who refuses to sign,” he said.
And its going to get worse as more and more Soldiers who've been to Iraq tell DoD to "stuff it."
Sending soldiers to Iraq with less than one year of their enlistment remaining “would not be taken lightly,” Lt. Col. Gerard Healy said from the Pentagon Wednesday.
“We realize that we deal with people and with families, and that’s got to be a factor,” he said.
“There’s probably a lot of places on post where they could put those folks (who don’t re-enlist) until their time expires. But I don’t want to rule out the possibility that they could go to a unit that might deploy,” said Healy.
Under current Army practice, members of Iraq-bound units are “stop-lossed,” meaning they could be retained in the unit for an entire year in Iraq, even if their active-duty enlistment expires.
And until the American people deal with the fact that this Administration has bitten off more than it can chew by annexing Iraq and Afghanistan within a year of each other, DoD will continue to "stop-loss" troops after they've honored the active duty obligations on their contracts and been to Iraq for one deployment already. If you want to see things get really fucked up, just wait until Bush wins re-election and the neo-cons then proceed to take on Syria and Iran…