Even the Army is capable of good choices.

We're a little behind on our Army Times subscription because we had to have our mail forwarded from GA to here, so the Army Times issues we got yesterday were on the news stands three weeks ago, but that doesn't matter. They were the ones we wanted to read more than we have ever wanted to read any Army Times issue in the history of the Army Times (other than the one in which Thak's name appeared in the list of new Staff Sergeants. That one was just this good.)

These Army Times issues dealt with Stop Loss policy changes. Now, Stop Loss is this thing that we all know about when we sign our enlistment contracts, but was never really used at all until this Iraq war started. It basically allows the Army to keep soldiers in as long as they want past their ETS (get out) dates, in order to get one more deployment out of them. I know people who deployed with Thak's brigade last time who were kept in a full year past their ETS dates in order to deploy for the 2007 troop surge. Stop Loss is a backdoor draft. Make no mistake about it. It is also what could have caused Thak to have a fourth tour before getting out, and to not be able to get out on time as planned.

However, the Army is phasing it out, and it will be dead before Thak's ETS date. There will be no Stop Loss at play when it would be possible (but still supremely unlikely) for his brigade to come up on orders. Stop Loss is being replaced with incentive pays for soldiers to extend their enlistments in order to deploy with their units. Well, obviously, for us, there's no amount of money in the world that's worth a fourth tour, far less the $6000 they're offering for it (total of monthly bonuses, that is. It's not lump sum.) $6000 is not nearly enough to make it even cross our mind to consider whether we would go through deployment hell again. Unbelievably enough, they'll probably keep a lot of people in with that, though, so it's a good policy.

Under the new policy, soldiers who have 6+ months left on their contract when the unit deploys will deploy with the unit, but be sent back 90 days prior to their ETS date to out process.

Soldiers with less than 6 months left on their contracts will be left back, and forced to get out 3 months early. This is the category Thak will fall into if his brigade does get orders within the next two years. (Again, this is EXTREMELY UNLIKELY.) So if it happened, he would be getting out in February 2011 instead of May 2011. Either way works great for us.

So, Stop Loss, you had a good run, screwed up a lot of people's lives, and even got some people killed after they should have been out of the Army completely. We won't miss you, stop loss, and we're thankful you won't have the opportunity to get us.

Speaking of backdoor drafts, I'm out of the IRR this July. That means that my time of being eligible for call back to active duty is coming to a close. After this July 4, they can never call me back as long as I live. Our family is so close to being done with Uncle Sam forever. It feels good to be short timingfor sure now, knowing that stop loss won't get us at the last minute.