My Dad was recalled for Korea from the Reserves and had so much time in that he stayed in after that. I gave them 8 years and then they started changing the rules, so I left as soon as I could, despite really liking my job.

My Dad was assigned to ROTC in the Reserves but was sent back to bombers and the introduction of guided weapons in combat.

Yes, being called up was in the paperwork, but when you’ve been inactive for 3 years or more you get the feeling that your service is over. War is a young person’s occupation. You can’t hump a pack in a desert at 50 after being behind a desk forever.

If the nation was attacked, I would be there, somehow. But there should have been a call for recruits after 9-11 and an expansion of the military, not a call to go shopping and to cut taxes.

I was just listening to one of my favorite bands today as I put up Christmas lights on the porch. A pertinent line from one of their songs rings:

They’ll look you in the eye, and swear to you,
But you know that it isn’t so
They say you’ll have to register,
But you’ll never have to go

The vast majority of serving military today have never seen a stop-loss order before this mess hit. They probably all thought, wrongly, that they’d “never have to go.”

They were wrong.

My perception of stop-loss is based on personal experience as both my father and I were in mission critical fields, and I had my first DD-214 before you were born, so don’t try to teach your grandfather how to suck eggs, by trying to tell me about an enlistment contract. There is no declared war and the “national emergency” is on pretty unstable ground with all of the lying that went on to justify the invasion of Iraq.

No one is attacking the troops, they are attacking the people who have given the troops a mission without the planning and support necessary to complete it.

The arguments against the “chickenhawk” meme are the result of carrying such thinking through to thier logical extensions, that you reserve exceptions doesn’t change that. And tehre are plenty of non-serving individuals throwing “chickenhawk” around which smacks of hypocricy of a similar flavor.

Iraq isn’t a disaster. It’s a work in progeress and it’s going to be a few years before anyone can competently judge what the outcome is. If you question my thinking, consider this; it takes 12 years to produce a Battalion commander or a 1st Sergeant.

Your conception of stop-loss is clearly formed by media accounts, which themselves were not well informed. Without giving a full explanation of how stop-loss actually looks, let me simply refer you to Form DD-4, the enlsitment contract, which states that any serviceperson may be held in service beyond the specified termination of the contract in the event of a declared war or national emergency for teh duration plus 6 months.

We signed up to serve. Most of us just want to be allowed to do it without the sharpshooting from the rear.