CREDO Mobile Action / Working Assets – 2008-03-22 22:41:29

http://act.credomobile.com/campaign/stoploss

For the past several years, the military has been using its stop-loss policy as a backdoor draft. This policy involuntarily extends service members’ enlistment contracts, thereby preventing them from leaving the military — or coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan — after their term of enlistment has ended.

This policy is devastating to our soldiers’ mental health, to their morale, and to their families. Some are forced to stay overseas for much longer than they had originally signed up for, while others are being sent back to a war zone after having returned to civilian life.

This stop-loss policy is not in keeping with the concept of an all-volunteer military.

As Senator John Kerry noted in 2004, “People serving beyond the time of their voluntary service are no longer volunteers.” Our military men and women are bravely serving their country — many of them despite objections to the war to which they have been deployed — and their service contracts should be honored. They deserve to come home to their families and attempt to rebuild their lives without the fear of being sent back into harm’s way.

Please sign this petition to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates calling on him to end the military’s stop-loss policy. We’ll deliver your signatures to the Department of Defense.

Full Petition Text:
Dear Secretary Gates,

Please reconsider the stop-loss policy that is currently in effect. Forcing our military men and women to serve beyond the time for which they enlisted and preventing them from returning home from overseas war zones is detrimental to the morale of the troops and to their families and communities at home.

This stop-loss policy is akin to a draft, as it is contrary to the concept of an all-volunteer military.

We call on you to honor your end of these enlistment contracts and fully release members of the military when their original term of enlistment — the term to which they agreed when they signed up to serve our country — has ended.
Signed by:
[Your name]
[Your address]

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