Explaining Stop Loss practices : Emiliano Santiago v Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld lawsuit April 2005, Seattle, WA

Yesterday the 9th circuit district Federal court heard and ruled on Emiliano Santiago's lawsuit challenging his Stop Loss and orders to deploy to Afghanistan with his unit. Apparantly it was a 'no brainer' for the judges as they took only a couple of hours to come back with a denial. Friday, this week, Santiago is off to Afghanistan.

The particulars are that he is Oregon National Guard, completed his 8 year contract BUT got Stop Loss orders a couple months before his contract expiration date. Effect; he's 'extended' for as long as the Stop Loss is in effect. And since no one seems to know who calls the shots on how long a stop loss can involuntarily keep soldiers in combat, be they active, Reserve, National Guard or IRR; it would seem that any enlistment is of indefinite duration now. I will be having more to write on the Santiago trial, but am borrowing a nifty explanation I read today for how the Stop Loss works.

Stop-Loss gets you 3 months out and 3 months in

Legally, Stop-Loss has to be reviewed every single anniversary year from it's original date of enforcement.

3 months before a deployment/PCS/ETS...and 3 months after a deployment/ETS...if you're caught in stop loss, chances are you will not PCS...and even if you do, the stop loss applies to your next duty station as well...

The 3 months in/out comes in this way:

Say a soldier is scheduled to get out in July 2005, but orders to deploy come down in June...1 month away from the soldier's ETS date...well, stop-loss has him (since it applies to 3 months prior to the deployment or ETS date)..now, the army can let him get out...but they don't have to legally.


Now, let's say you just got back from deployment, have 5 months to go until your ETS date...but orders come down to deploy in the 2nd month after your return (within that 3 month window)...Stop-Loss has got you again...because it's still 3 months out/3 months in...Even though you now have 3 months to go before you ETS, orders that came within the 3 month window of Stop-Loss prevent you from ETS'ing. So you have to deploy...and your ETS date is put on hold for a year. (which just happens to be the length of your deployment)...

all the DoD/Pentagon has to do every year is say..gee, stop-loss is needed..and stop-loss gets renewed ...

the judge in this case is claiming it applies to the soldier because at the time the soldier was "active" when the orders came down...and it's the 3 months in/out that is the basis for that claim...

from the article

"In December, District Court Judge Owen Panner ruled in favor of the Pentagon, saying the Army's mobilization alert in April 2004 was tantamount to an order to active duty two months before Santiago's discharge. "

Oh, that outlandish, way in the future, date is SOP anytime Stop-Loss is put into practice...it's just CYA for the DoD...in theory, Stop-Loss can be indefinite... and if deployments orders are timed right, a soldier can serve for years beyond their ETS date...

the thing is...that 8 year obligation is a contract and one that was being upheld until they last few years...now the government is changing all that and effectively drafting those who have fulfilled their contracts. They are really screwing the guard and reserves with this the most but active duty is also being harmed by it.

Democratic Underground Forums - Pentagon's "stop-loss" policy on trial here


Article at Seattle Times;

Pentagon's "stop-loss" policy on trial here
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
By Alex Fryer
Seattle Times staff reporter

Emiliano Santiago, an Oregon National Guardsman, finished his eight-year enlistment last June.

But four months later the Army wanted to ship the Pasco resident to Afghanistan and reset his military termination date to Christmas Eve 2031.

Santiago, 27, decided to take it to court.

His lawsuit, Santiago v. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, will be heard today in a special sitting of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle.

It will be the highest court review of the Army's "stop-loss" policy, which affects about 14,000 soldiers nationwide.

Of the 4,200 citizen soldiers in the state's 81st Brigade Combat Team, the deployments of 412 were extended through stop-loss, according to National Guard officials.

Santiago's legal battle has attracted national attention but is most loudly trumpeted by groups opposing the war, adding a political dimension to what his lawyer says is ultimately a case about fairness.

In November 2002, the Army implemented stop-loss to ensure reserve units ordered to active duty would not lose key personnel.

Army attorneys say the law gives President Bush the ability to "suspend any provision of the law relating to promotion, retirement or separation" of any soldier who is deemed essential to national security in times of crisis.

Santiago, whose unit refuels helicopters, learned the Army had added 26 years to his enlistment. The date was selected for "administrative convenience," according to court papers. Most guardsmen extend their commitment from three to six years.


Pentagon policy blasted
In legal briefs, Santiago's legal team blasted the Pentagon's policy.

"Conscription for decades or life is the work of despots. ... It has no place in a free and democratic society," the team wrote.

"If the government can break its promises to young men and women like Santiago, then the bedrock of our all-volunteer army — trust in the government's promises — will crumble."

Although the National Guard has failed to hit recruitment targets recently, an Army spokesman said stop-loss was not designed to buttress thinning ranks.

"Bottom line is that stop-loss has nothing to do with increasing the number of people in the Army and everything to do with effective units," said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman.

In December, District Court Judge Owen Panner ruled in favor of the Pentagon, saying the Army's mobilization alert in April 2004 was tantamount to an order to active duty two months before Santiago's discharge.

What's more, Panner determined that since other members of the Army National Guard had been serving on active duty since October 2001, the stop-loss policy extends to Santiago and every other citizen soldier.

Santiago appealed, and the three-judge panel is expected to rule in several months.

The case could go before the entire 9th Circuit or end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Unless the appeals court grants an injunction, Santiago, an electrical engineer, is scheduled to be shipped to Afghanistan within a week.

Santiago's lawyers initially tried to challenge the president's emergency mobilization to deploy troops in Afghanistan on the grounds that the country now has a democratically elected government.

Politics still part of case
Panner rejected that argument as political, and Santiago's attorneys dropped it. But politics are still part of the case.

Military Families Speak Out, formed in November 2002 to oppose the war in Iraq, is expected to demonstrate outside the courtroom.

The National Lawyers Guild, which called Bush's 2000 victory a "betrayal of democracy," has been involved in several stop-loss cases.

"We win if enlistment numbers go down," said Marti Hiken, co-chair of the guild's Military Law Task Force in San Francisco. "Military people won't go in if they can't get out."

Santiago's attorney, Steven Goldberg, a member of the National Lawyers Guild, said his client steered away from politics.

Santiago was traveling yesterday and could not be reached.

"I've not spoken about the politics with him," Goldberg said. "It's really about fairness."

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U.S. Military Says 16 Dead In Chopper Crash; Crash Is Deadliest Since U.S.-Led Offensive Began In 2001

Crash Is Deadliest Since U.S.-Led Offensive Began In 2001



UPDATED: 3:00 pm PDT April 6, 2005



KABUL, Afghanistan -- The U.S. military now says 16 people have died in the crash of a U.S. helicopter Wednesday in Afghanistan, in the deadliest military crash since the U.S.-led offensive began in 2001.



The military said four American crew members and at least 12 others died. An Afghan police official said all of the dead appeared to be American.



Two others are listed as missing.



Earlier, the military said there were nine people killed in the crash. But that death toll has risen.



The military said bad weather appeared to have brought down the Chinook transport helicopter about 80 miles southwest of Kabul and that there were no survivors.



The military would not confirm the nationalities of the passengers Names are being withheld until their next of kin are notified.



Abdul Rahman Sarjang, the chief of police in Ghazni, said the helicopter came down at about 2:30 p.m. near a brick factory three miles outside the city and burst into flames. U.S. troops rushed to cordon the area to look for any survivors, he said.



"We collected nine bodies, though the Americans told us there were 13 people in total on board," Sarjang told AP by mobile telephone from the crash site. "They were all wearing American uniforms and they were all dead."



Sarjang said the weather was cloudy with strong winds, but had no explanation for why the aircraft came down in a flat, desert area.



He said there was no sign that enemy fire could have brought it down.







KIROTV.com - News - U.S. Military Says 16 Dead In Chopper Crash

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Recruiters Shift Focus To Parents

Parent Alert. Mom Alert. They really do want your kids and no matter how they spin it, those kids Will wind up in Iraq.



Ask this Mom who knows; our two young loved ones are under orders for 2nd deployment to Iraq in just a few short months. And they have already been told they are 'Stop Lossed' (means they are required to serve with their unit beyond their contracted time, and until the military says otherwise). And both were to make re-enlistment decision last month to sign on for another 6 years (it used to be 3-4 years, now it's 6 years).



Faced with orders back to Iraq and Stop Lossed in the concluding year of their original enlistment, this is not much of a choice. Options; don't re-enlist and they are back in Iraq anyway + stop lossed less the re-enlist bonus. Re-enlist; give up another 6 years and have the nifty re-enlist bonus and do rotation deployments to Iraq or whatever is the next country that will be invaded to spread democracy. Then it could be said that they willingly re-enlisted knowing the consequences and gee, aren't they valiant soldiers.



It's a double-bind entrapment; conscription and draft. Think the military isn't having problems with retention? Think our country isn't already engaged in a draft? Think aggressive and creative marketing to recruit doesn't point to a real problem with the support for all this carnage and destruction in Iraq in .... what were the reasons we went into Iraq? Oh yeah, terrorism, wmd, Saddam Hussein the brutal dictator, (oil ) and what is the reason now? Stabilizing the Middle East and spreading democracy and Freedom.



Of course, it must be concluded that the general American populace would not have supported an invasion if the real reasons to invade were the original marketing message. Instead the fear-based message was marketed to get us into a war from which this Administration has no intention of withdrawing. Wouldn't you think if the Adminstration thought the American public could stomach the political reasons for taking us into war that message would have been the marketing message? So why are we still there and how long can one dupe themselves into believing the daily deaths and extreme maiming of our young is worthwhile?



They are coming for your young now, be warned and be aware. Fool yourself into believing your own should give up life and limb in this ignoble war. And while you are protecting your own young, please bring mine home.





Article; Recruiters Shift Focus To Parents

USA TODAY

April 5, 2005



WASHINGTON - Faced with wilting recruitment and ongoing violence in Iraq, Army and Marine Corps recruiters are turning their attention to those most likely to oppose them: parents.



The two branches are shifting from a strategy that focused first on wooing potential recruits to one aimed at gaining the trust and attention of their parents by using grass-roots initiatives and multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns.



The public relations push comes as the Army and Marines, which absorb the brunt of the casualties in Iraq, encounter one of their worst periods in recruitment.



Among their initiatives:







* Four new "influencer" TV ads by the Army, aimed at moms, dads, coaches and ministers. The ads air this month.



* A decision to pair Army recruiters with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on visits to the homes of potential recruits. The idea: Tell parents "the Army story," says Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Pamela Hart. * A nine-minute video, "Parents Speak," in which parents of Marines say the Corps has been good for their children.



* A direct-mail campaign by the Marines to parents of high school juniors and seniors. The Marines highlight the benefits of joining and ask for an opportunity to talk to the students' parents about a military career.



Studies for the Army show parents are the top obstacles to recruiting. "Opposition to . . . military service is increasing significantly among both moms and dads," says a study of 1,200 potential recruits by the firm Millward Brown.



Another look at potential recruits, by GfK Custom Research, found that the biggest influences in candidates' decisions to join were mothers, named by 81% of respondents, followed by fathers, at 70%.



"Reach the parents with the Army's new message, particularly moms," the study urges.



Both branches are trying to convince parents their children will be instilled with integrity and job skills and that service in Iraq is not a death sentence.



Still, recruitment numbers sag. In February, the Army missed its recruiting goal for the first time in nearly five years. The Army missed its March goal by 32%.



Recruiters Shift Focus To Parents

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Fort Campbell-based soldier returns home, disappears

Posted on Mon, Apr. 04, 2005

Associated Press



STANFORD, Ky. - An Army specialist who served with the 101st Airborne Division has not been seen nor heard from by family since February 2004, just months after he returned from duty in Iraq.



Army Spec. Levi Moddrelle, 21, returned to Stanford in 2003 after serving as a Chinook helicopter mechanic near Mosul at the height of combat in Iraq.



His mother, Susan Tileston of Stanford, says her son may have been distressed by his experiences in combat around Mosul at the height of the war that he ran away from the Army to avoid the possibility of another tour in Iraq.



"At this point, I just want to know that he's OK," Tileston said. "It's terrible not knowing whether he might be hurt or lying in a ditch somewhere."



Army spokeswoman Martha Rudd confirmed last week that Moddrelle has been absent without leave from his unit at Fort Campbell - Bravo Co., 7th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment - since Jan. 31, 2004, and is now listed as a deserter.



...snipped ,read more at

AP Wire | 04/04/2005 | Fort Campbell-based soldier returns home, disappears

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60% of wounded soldiers Iraq have Taumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) ; Bush eliminateds Funding for TBI.

March 18, 2005



According to doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., 60 percent of the wounded soldiers coming back from Iraq have traumatic brain injuries.



Unfortunately, the Bush administration has recently completely zeroed out funding for the Federal TBI Act, which provides exactly this kind of help.



....snipped, read more at

Times Argus

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Conversations with U.S. Wounded Soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital; C-Span

Last night I watched a C-Span special; Conversations with U.S. Wounded Soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital. A reporter was given permission to interview 4 amputee soldiers in rehabilitation treatment services at the hospital. The interviews were conversational and permitted adequate time for the soldiers to expand on their answers, which included how were you wounded; how were you treated; how is it going with the prosthetic and rehabilitation; are you angry; what will you do next.

I don't know the background in how the reporter was given access to interview inside the hospital, nor the process for which soldiers the reporter was permitted to interview. However, the 4 soldiers that were interviewed suffered devastating injuries and all 4 are amputees with loss of limbs; Cpl. Michael Oreskovic, Major Tammy Duckworth, First Lt. Erasmos Valles, and Sgt. Manuel Mendoza Valencia in their own words, provide a good cross-section of thoughts and opinions about the war, their injuries, their experience, their recuperation and rehabilitation, their comrades, their hopes for their own futures.

I don't want to add my opinion, more wanted to point out that these poignant conversations are available at C-Span in streaming video with audio. Recommending.

see and hear streaming video at C-SPAN

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'Cost of War' conference

Cost of War conference, Bend, Oregon, March 26, 2005,
Lietta Ruger, Military Families Speak Out, Guest Speaker,

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Rebels Wound 44 U.S. Troops in Attack on Abu Ghraib Prison

BAGHDAD — More than three dozen insurgents launched an audacious strike Saturday against the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, wounding 44 U.S. troops and 13 Iraqi detainees.



The large-scale attack represented a rare direct assault against a well-fortified U.S. position. It was also one of the more sophisticated strikes against American troops since President Saddam Hussein was toppled from power two years ago.



read more at Rebels Wound 44 U.S. Troops in Attack on Abu Ghraib Prison

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At Least 20 U.S. Troops Wounded in Iraq Jail Attack

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Dozens of insurgents attacked Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad on Saturday, detonating two suicide car bombs and firing rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. forces before the assault was repelled, the U.S. military said.



At least 20 U.S. soldiers were wounded in the fighting, which lasted around an hour, a U.S. officer said. At least 12 detainees were also wounded, some severely. It was not known how many insurgents were wounded or killed.

Top News Article | Reuters.com

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Army Still Misses Recruiting Targets

Much as I'd like to find a way to make those neat and tidy short entries to this blog; equally it concerns me how information on the troops has tendency to 'disappear' fairly quickly after it comes to light. Here is another article, comprehensive and worth reading if you are among those concerned about the very distinct possibility of something resembling a more 'official' draft in the near offing.

As for me, of course I don't want to see a draft, ie, 1960's, as I've already lived that history, having my own then young husband drafted and sent to Vietnam. And no I don't want to see more young sent into carnage and destruction in Iraq. Yet, equally, what of the troops already there stretched thin beyond human limits? Who will give them relief? How will they perform their impossible assigned missions with troop shortages? How efficient is a military command without the 'bodies' to deploy?

And this same nation who voted for war in re-electing this President, using all the shallow patriotism slogans....maybe it's your turn now to step up to the plate....send yours, bring mine home. Mine already served, mine are up for 2nd deployments to Iraq in a few short months.

Let's spread the wealth, redistribute the call to patriotic duty to the wider masses, and where are all those republican families who believe we need this war in Iraq when it comes time to send their own young? These are my sarcastic thoughts, which goes to my sense of anger, hurt and betrayal at how the troops are being so badly misused and left to carry the burden of combat without the support of the nation they are supposedly defending. Support the troops; send your own. No? God forbid; then decide, America, are we in a war and at war and a 'just war' or are we jockeying position to save face for all the empty political rhetoric and posturing that took this nation into war and an Administration that has acknowledged it will be a war to go on for years and years?

Who will fight this ongoing years and years war if recruitment continues to be on the decline....seriously in decline? Our dwindling assigned troops who have been conscripted through back door draft policies using 'under the radar' strategies to avoid a publicly known need for something to ameliorate the troop shortage won't live on to fight another day indefinitely. Is the philosophy to fight on till the last man is left standing?

What are the solutions? What are the questions? Where is the authentic dialogue to address the realities of assigning our country and their young to years and years of war in Iraq, in the Middle East? You tell me; I really want to know as our family endures yet another 2nd deployment of our young loved ones to Iraq. Answer to this military family and challenge my patriotism for daring to speak in concern for our troops and loved ones; will you put your own where you have mouthed the platitudes? Will you slap a yellow magnet on your vehicle and march your youngsters down to the recuriting stations? Will you turn a blind eye as the schools make your student a potential target to recruitment? No!?

Then why should my loved ones still be there?

Lietta Ruger, military brat, military family of Vietnam-era, military family in this questionable war in Iraq.



Read the Article here Army Still Misses Recruiting Targets






Army Still Misses Recruiting Targets

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Creditors Make Illegal Demands on Active-Duty Soldiers

Some Creditors Make Illegal Demands on Active-Duty Soldiers

By Diana B. Henriques

The New York Times



Monday 28 March 2005



Sgt. John J. Savage III, an Army reservist, was about to climb onto a troop transport plane for a flight to Iraq from Fayetteville, N.C., when his wife called with alarming news: "They're foreclosing on our house."



Sergeant Savage recalled, "There was not a thing I could do; I had to jump on the plane and boil for 22 hours."



He had reason to be angry. A longstanding federal law strictly limits the ability of his mortgage company and other lenders to foreclose against active-duty service members.



But Sergeant Savage's experience was not unusual. Though statistics are scarce, court records and interviews with military and civilian lawyers suggest that Americans heading off to war are sometimes facing distracting and demoralizing demands from financial companies trying to collect on obligations that, by law, they cannot enforce.



Some cases involve nationally prominent companies like Wells Fargo and Citigroup, though both say they are committed to strict compliance with the law.



The problem, most military law specialists say, is that too many lenders, debt collectors, landlords, lawyers and judges are unaware of the federal statute or do not fully understand it.



The law, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, protects all active-duty military families from foreclosures, evictions and other financial consequences of military service.



The Supreme Court has ruled that its provisions must "be liberally construed to protect those who have been obliged to drop their own affairs to take up the burdens of the nation."



Yet the relief act has not seemed to work in recent cases like these:



* At Fort Hood, Tex., a soldier's wife was sued by a creditor trying to collect a debt owed by her and her husband, who was serving in Baghdad at the time. A local judge ruled against her, saying she had defaulted, even though specialists say the relief act forbids default judgments against soldiers serving overseas and protects their spouses as well.



* At Camp Pendleton, Calif., more than a dozen marines returned from Iraq to find that their cars and other possessions had been improperly sold to cover unpaid storage and towing fees. The law forbids such seizures without a court order.



* In northern Ohio, Wells Fargo served a young Army couple with foreclosure papers despite the wife's repeated efforts to negotiate new repayment terms with the bank. Wells Fargo said later that it had been unaware of the couple's military status. The foreclosure was dropped after a military lawyer intervened.



The relief act provides a broad spectrum of protections to service members, their spouses and their dependents. The interest rate on debts incurred before enlistment, for example, must be capped at 6 percent if military duty has reduced a service member's family income.



The law also protects service members from repossession or foreclosure without a court order. It allows them to terminate any real estate lease when their military orders require them to do so. And it forbids judges from holding service members in default on any legal matter unless the court has first appointed a lawyer to protect their interests.



The law is an updated version of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act, which was adopted on the eve of World War II and remained largely unchanged through the Persian Gulf war of 1991. But in July 2001, a federal court ruled that service members could sue violators of the relief act for damages. And the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 prompted Congress to take up a long-deferred Pentagon proposal to update the old act. The revised statute, clearer and more protective than the old one, was signed into law in December 2003.



But the news was apparently slow in reaching those who would have to interpret and enforce the law.



"There are 50,000 judges in this country and God knows how many lawyers," said Alexander P. White, a county court judge in Chicago and the chairman of one of the American Bar Association's military law committees. "Are people falling down on the job - the judges, the bar, the military? Probably." And broad understanding of the law "is not going to happen overnight."



Military lawyers, credit industry organizations and some state courts and bar associations have also tried to spread the word about the new law. But these efforts are not enough, said Col. John S. Odom Jr., retired, of Shreveport, La., who is a specialist on the act. "What we need is a way to reach Joe Bagadoughnuts in Wherever, Louisiana," he said. "Because that's where these cases are turning up."



One reason they are surfacing in unlikely places is the Pentagon's increased reliance on Reserve and National Guard units that do not hail from traditional military towns, said Lt. Col. Barry Bernstein, the judge advocate general for the South Carolina National Guard. When these units are called up, he said, their members find themselves facing creditors and courts that may never have dealt with the relief act.



As a result, some service members heading off to war have confronted exactly the kinds of problems the law was supposed to prevent. The Coast Guard alone handled more than 300 complaints last year; military law specialists say the numbers are probably higher in the branches sending troops abroad.



Sergeant Savage's lender eventually dropped its foreclosure against him after receiving repeated warnings from military lawyers at Fort Bragg, N.C. But damage was done. The foreclosure dispute remained on his credit history, hurting his ability to revive his struggling wireless Internet connection business when he returned home to Asheboro, N.C., he said. By then he had retired on full disability after being seriously injured while working on a sabotaged electrical system at the former Baghdad Convention Center.



Sergeant Savage has not let the matter end. Represented by Colonel Odom, he has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Greensboro, N.C. He says the EverHome Mortgage Company, a unit of the EverBank Financial Corporation in Jacksonville, Fla., violated the relief act by failing to cap his mortgage at 6 percent, wrongfully initiating foreclosure and, after dropping the foreclosure, failing to remove information about it from his credit history.



The mortgage company denied that it violated the act or treated Sergeant Savage unfairly. His case "has unique and extenuating circumstances" that will be raised when the dispute comes to trial, Michael C. Koster, EverHome's president, said in a written statement.



"We are confident that court documents will reveal that EverBank treated Mr. Savage equitably and worked diligently to resolve this matter," Mr. Koster said.



When Sgt. Michael Gaskins of Fort Hood, Tex., was sent to Iraq last April, his wife, Melissa, was left to cope with a dispute over a delinquent loan from the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital credit union; the couple took out the loan just before Sergeant Gaskins enlisted in November 2001. When the credit union took the couple to court in Texas last year, a military lawyer at Fort Hood alerted the local judge that the new relief act required that the case be deferred because Sergeant Gaskins was abroad.



But on Feb. 18, a county court judge in Gatesville, Tex., ruled that Mrs. Gaskins had lost the case by default. She was ordered to pay the credit union more than $6,000 and turn over the family truck, which secured the loan. Colonel Odom, who is also representing the couple, is trying to have the default judgment overturned, in part on the ground that the relief act protects spouses as well as service members.



The credit union in Tallahassee, Fla., disputes that. "It's our position the act does not protect her," said Palmer Williams, a lawyer for the organization. Judge Susan R. Stephens, the county judge who signed the default judgment, said she did not think that Mrs. Gaskins had ever invoked the relief act but said she would review the matter when it came before her.



The relief act was also supposed to prevent the kind of situation that the marines returning to Camp Pendleton faced when they discovered that their cars and other possessions had been sold to cover towing and storage fees.



"The act says you need a court order to do that, and you can't get a court order without notice to the service member," said Maj. Michael R. Renz, director of the joint legal assistance office there. "I've got six attorneys here, and each one of us has handled at least two or three of these cases within the last eight months."



Stephen Lynch, a civilian lawyer for the Coast Guard in Cleveland, said he had stepped in repeatedly over the past year to help service members invoke their rights under the act.



One of them is a young soldier sent to east Asia, leaving a wife and two children at home in northern Ohio. His periods of unemployment and the death of a newborn daughter last July left the young family struggling financially. Their situation was aggravated by delays in the processing of his first military paychecks, said Mr. Lynch, who asked that the couple's name not be used because their debt problems could hurt the soldier's career.



The soldier's wife said she had tried for months to renegotiate their mortgage with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. But on March 8, just three weeks after paying the bank $3,000 that the U.S.O. had raised on her behalf, she was served with foreclosure papers.



"I'm having anxiety attacks," the wife said in an interview that night. "I'm not sleeping." She said she was especially worried about how much to tell her husband. "The other military wives I've spoken to all say, 'Don't let them know you're upset; don't let them hear you cry.' "



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t r u t h o u t - Creditors Make Illegal Demands on Active-Duty Soldiers

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23 yr old Iraq veteran guilty of refusing orders

March 28, 2005 6:45 PM

Iraq veteran guilty of refusing orders

By Andy Buerger

DARMSTADT, Germany (Reuters) - A U.S. military court has convicted a 23-year-old Army mechanic of wilfully disobeying orders for refusing to perform duties after a year-long tour of Iraq, an army spokesman has said.

Specialist Blake Lemoine, who returned to Germany in May 2004, said he wanted to quit the army due to religious beliefs.

The special military court sentenced Lemoine to seven months confinement, reduction in rank to private and gave him a bad conduct discharge, said Bruce Anderson, deputy public affairs spokesman for the 3rd Corps support command.

Lemoine, who had condemned the invasion of Iraq, was charged for repeatedly refusing to obey orders from commanders between January 10 and February 15 at a base in Darmstadt, south of Frankfurt.

Lemoine, from Moraville, Louisiana, told a recent news conference in Germany sponsored by anti-war groups that even though he volunteered to join the army, he had changed his mind and wanted to leave.

"It was simply a slow realisation that serving in the U.S. military at this day and time contradicts my religion and to continue to do so would make me a hypocrite," he said last week.

Lemoine had also been quoted in German newspapers as saying: "The contract with the U.S. army is a slavery contract." He also spoke out against U.S. army violence against Iraqis, saying: "Iraqi civilians are often treated worse than animals."

Reuters
International news from swissinfo, the Swiss news platform

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Signing Up or Opting Out Military recruiters and counter-recruiters wage war

This weekend past, we were invited guest speakers on an impressive panel for Cost of War conference, public invited, in Bend, Oregon. Among the people we met while there, was Bruce Miller, an editor of the weekly news publication, The Source. He did an interview with us, but that's not why I'm blogging this; more that I was impressed with an article he published in the previous week's Source on military recruiting in the schools.

I learned something I did not know, and thinking since I scan everything related to the troops, how did I miss this, I was pleased to learn and I quote from the Source article;

Early this month, U.S. Rep. Mike Honda, a Democrat from California, introduced a bill that would have reversed the current law and prohibited recruiters from contacting high school students unless their parents specifically approved of it first. The measure was promptly shot down by the House Republican majority.

“It’s been summarily put on the shelf by the Republican leadership,” said Jay Staunton, Honda’s press secretary. “He [Honda] may be able to tack it onto a defense appropriations bill, although I would expect it to meet strong resistance from the majority party.”

Hey thanks Mike Honda for your efforts, and would that more Legislators would step up to the plate to publicly endorse life over death or maiming in combat for our young . Yet even so, there are the few; Rep. Woolsey, Congressman Jim McDermott, and now Rep Mike Honda.

"Student Privacy Protection Act, H.R. 551"
To Rep. Honda's office: Fax (202) 225-2699 or E-mail – vivek.kothari@mail.house.gov
To the MCC Washington Office: Fax (202) 544-2820 or E-mail – mccwash@mcc.org

*H.R. 551 has the following cosponsors: Reps. John Conyers (D-MI), Sam Farr (D-CA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Jim McDermott (D-WA), James McGovern (D-MA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ron Paul (R-TX), Bobby Rush (D-IL), Fortney "Pete" Stark (D-CA), Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH), Diane Watson (D-CA), and Robert Wexler (D-FL). Right now, there is no similar version in the U.S. Senate.

Am I overlooking other legislators who have taken action to show displeasure with the war in Iraq and work on behalf of their constituency; the silent voices of the warriors?

Read the article at the Source, and please urge your own local newspapers to report on the aggressive recruitment efforts going on in our high schools across the nation under the 'No Child Left Behind' act of President Bush. It provides some level of federal funding to the schools, in exchange the schools provide the contact information (names, addresses, phone numbers) of high school students 17 and older to the military recruiters who are then able to actively dog a student incessantly in misleading and aggressive pursuit of recruitment.

The school personnel ought to know of the opt out, in which a parent can request their child's contact information not be provided to military recruiters. School personnel have a responsibility to inform parents of the shift due to the No Child Left Behind; but lost federal funds and all......you can fairly well guess how school personnel might be torn between the needed funds and putting a young person at the mercy of military recruiters who are very willing to mislead our young into signing a contract for military enlistment.

Quoting again from the Source;

“The main draw that the military has is the Montgomery GI Bill, the promise of money for college,” he said. “They make it sound like it’s almost going to pay for your whole college. They’re promising 50, 60, 70 thousand dollars for college. In reality I don’t see veterans getting those kinds of dollars when they get out. The estimates I’ve seen are that about 25 to 30 percent [of veterans] don’t get any [college] money at all.”

Recruiters also use the bait-and-switch routine, Grueschow said, falsely promising recruits that they’ll have their pick of training and assignments.

In their recruitment pitches and advertising, he said, the armed forces “oversell programs they think are going to be attractive to kids. Obviously not everybody is going to be a jet pilot. There are a lot of pretty mundane jobs in the military.”

Instead of taking a recruiter’s promises at face value, Grueschow said, kids thinking about enlisting should read the fine print: “It says right in the standard enlistment form you sign that your pay and benefits and job assignment and all that stuff can be changed at any time. The actual agreement you sign is very clear that there really are no guarantees, and yet [recruiters] use the word ‘guarantee’ pretty regularly.”

Local recruiters have quotas they’re expected to meet, Grueschow said, and if they fail to meet them they could lose their posts as recruiters.

“Being a recruiter is considered kind of a plush assignment,” he said. “If they don’t meet their quotas regularly, they’re going to get transferred out”--maybe to Iraq.

...snipped

But other branches of the armed forces aren’t doing so well. Voice of America News reported last week that two years after the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the number of volunteers is declining.

“At a Senate hearing this week, the Army’s vice chief of staff, General Richard Cody, said falling numbers are a concern,” VOA reported. “The Army National Guard missed its goal of recruiting 56,000 new soldiers last year, and the Marine Corps failed to reach its enlistment goal for the first time in almost a decade. This year, the active-duty Army is 6 percent below its month-by-month recruitment goals, and the Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard and Navy Reserve also are falling to meet their recruitment targets for 2005.”

As their job gets tougher, recruiters are likely to face increasing pressure to round up enough bodies, which will mean offering more enticements to prospects. Already, according to Grueschow, military recruiters are wooing likely candidates almost as intently as college football coaches trying to sign an All-American high school quarterback.

After getting a young person to sign on the dotted line, he said, “A good recruiter will be calling that kid practically weekly, checking in with him. They have activities, weekend events and stuff. They make it sound like they’re required, but you don’t really have to go to those.”

Grueschow also made the important point that a recruit’s commitment isn’t final when he or she signs the first enlistment agreement.

“One thing most people don’t know is that if you sign up, until you’re ready to go to boot camp you can back out of it,” he said. “There are two swearing-ins, the first one when you sign up and the second one usually on the morning you leave for boot camp. Up until that second swearing-in you can walk away and no action will be taken. Of course, your individual recruiter isn’t going to tell you about that.”

For her part, Debby Rutkai thinks military recruiters shouldn’t even be allowed on high school campuses. Making a decision to join the armed forces and risk your life, she argues, is fundamentally different from deciding what college to attend or what civilian career to pursue.

“Oftentimes the military recruits young people for positions such as truck mechanic,” she said. “Someone else I know wanted to get education toward some kind of medical degree. Usually if you want to get a job here in town as a mechanic you don’t have a requirement to then go to war. To me that’s a whole different thing. They [high school students] understand that to a degree, but not fully what they’re getting into.”

Heed the information, and print it, and share it in your own community. Be a mentor to a 17 year old under pressure from family, friends, school to make career choices and ask yourself if you are truly willing to let a naive youngster become the cannon fodder for the Iraq war.

You can find the Opt Out form here, print it out, parent to sign if student under 18 yrs; student to sign if 18 yrs or older and give the signed form to school principal or administrator.


the Source - Bend Oregon Newspaper

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The Seattle Times Thousands rally to protest Iraq war

March 19, 2005; 2nd anniversary of war in Iraq with upwards of 750 rallys and protests held across the world...or so that is what is reported. For our local area, Seattle, the article below reports on the rally held at Seattle Center. And yes, that is us being referred to in the interview. We were invited to be guest speakers representing Military Families Speak Out, Pacific Northwest.



We got a last minute call on Thursday evening and had one day to pull together our resources and prepare for our presentation. There was some confusion about the amount of time we were alloted to speak, it went from 10 minutes to 5 minutes to 8 minutes total for the both of us combined. We carved down our pepared speeches to meet the time alloted, yet even that was was shortened to about 6 minutes total as prior speakers ran over their allotted time... considerably.



We were scheduled to speak at 1:15pm and as other speeches ran long we didn't actually speak until 2:30pm. By then the feeder marchers from a variety of other meetings and rallys had arrived at the Seattle Center for the convergence of one large march and were justifiably impatient to get started. I didn't get to deliver my brief prepared speech with 3 items I wanted to call to attention, but I was able to make mention of 2 of the items and particularly to call attention to the Resolutions already presented to both Oregon Governor Kulongoski and Washington Governor Gregoire to call home the National Guard for their respective states.



As my last statement I got to mention that copies of the Resolution for Washington Governor Gregoire were available at our table (Military Families Speak Out) to take and freely distribute. I asked that people sign and put address on the Resolution and mail in to Governor Gregoire's office.



Despite the delay in the planned tight time schedule and the eagerness of folks to get the march started, the lines formed immediately to obtain copy of the Resolution. This intrigued me because it seemed to demonstrate that people Want to take action steps beyond rallying to protest when actions are made available to take and I will be most curious to see where the Resolution goes.



We are grateful to some significant people among the event organizers who made this opportunity possible for us to share our personal message on behalf of our deployed loved ones and on behalf of the troops. We are particularly grateful to Mike of the Major Visibility Project, Seattle, who shepherded the representation and visibility of our MFSO organization amongst the many groups represented at the rally. With the help of many Friends our last minute invitation which left us inadequately prepared gave us what amounted to an opportunity to not only share our voices, but more importantly to give yet another avenue for many to act to make their voices heard.





Here is the Seattle Times news article reporting on the Cost of War, Bring the Troops Home Now rally at Seattle Center, March 19, 2005.



Thousands rally to protest Iraq war



By Tan Vinh

Seattle Times staff reporter



As military families go, Lietta Ruger said, she is as red, white and blue as any proud mother.



But how could she reconcile her loyalty to the armed forces with her disdain for the Iraq war?



For months, she kept silent — until her son-in law faced mortar attacks every night at his Baghdad compound. That's when the Episcopal preacher in her came out.



Ruger, 53, of Bay Center, Pacific County, spoke out against the war on PBS' "The NewsHour" with Jim Lehrer last fall and to her congregation at St. John's Episcopal Church in South Bend, Pacific County.



And again yesterday: On the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, she gave an impassioned speech explaining why she believes the war in Iraq is unjust, before a crowd of anti-war protesters at Seattle Center. Organizers put the number of participants at 5,000.



The Seattle protest, put together by the Church Council of Greater Seattle, Washington State Jobs with Justice and Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War, was part of a worldwide movement designed to place pressure on the military and get attention from Washington, D.C.



More than 700 marches, rallies, peace vigils and protests were held in communities from California to Illinois to New York, twice the number as last year, according to national organizers.



Thousands joined similar protests in European cities — 45,000 in London, according to The Associated Press. On both sides of the Atlantic, the protests were passionate but largely peaceful. Seattle police made no arrests.



In Seattle, Ruger, whose son-in-law and nephew are about to serve their second tour in Iraq, and who herself was raised in a military family, addressed the crowd knowing that "a lot of military [families] are not very happy with my message."



But, she said, "You should not let someone else define patriotism for you."



After the rally, the crowd marched in the rain from Seattle Center to Westlake Park and back. Several groups of students and political activists who had rallied elsewhere earlier in the day joined in the 90-minute march.



Among the marchers were church groups, labor unions and campus clubs, veterans and military spouses, organizers said.



There were protesters such as retired Lt. John Oliveira, 39, of Darrington, who told the Seattle Center crowd that he resigned from the Navy last year because he didn't want to continue pitching a war he didn't believe in.



Two years ago, Oliveira said, he looked into the cameras of several television networks and "sold this war as a war on terrorism, removing weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqi nuclear threat.



"Well, we have found out that that was the biggest lie ever perpetrated on the American people," he said.



Ruger feels more at peace now that she is expressing her displeasure over the war and what it is doing to her family, she said. While her son-in-law served 15 months in Iraq, she had to console her daughter and help out by baby-sitting her three grandchildren.



Ruger declined to give her son-in-law's name but said "He will do his mission, but his preference is to be home." He is a 25-year old Army sergeant. "If I could do it, I would go in his place," she said.



The woman who once stayed silent now lobbies Olympia lawmakers to get the Washington National Guard out of Iraq and has joined a military-family group against the war.



Ruger, who grew up on a military base in Japan and 11 years ago married a Vietnam veteran, Arthur Ruger, 57, said, "I have absolute pride in the military."



Her husband also gave the crowd some advice: "You can be against the war, you can disagree with Bush and still be a patriot."



The Seattle Times: Local News: Thousands rally to protest Iraq war

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Another Reservist Suing Army Over Not Letting Him Out

Note as this article reports; The three conditions not met for keeping a Reservist beyond his contractual obligation; NOT MET;



-- He is not 'under investigation'



-- It is not a time of war (undeclared and illegal war in Iraq)



-- No National Emergency has been declared.



-- No other conditions identified which would necessitate this action.







By Rob Olmstead Daily Herald Staff Writer

Posted Wednesday, March 16, 2005



A decorated Army Reserve officer from Arlington Heights sued his commander Tuesday, arguing the commander's refusal to release him from service is a de facto "internal draft."



Maj. Richard Olejniczak, 35, says although there is no "stop- loss" order prohibiting his exit from the reserves, his commander, Col. John F. Hanley, twice denied his resignation.



Olejniczak, a West Point graduate who served twice in Kuwait, was honorably discharged from the Army in 1995 and then entered the Reserves, where he has served since. He is stationed with the 1st Brigade, 85th Division at Fort Sheridan.



"Petitioner has more than fulfilled his eight-year statutory military service obligation," wrote his lawyer, Eugene R. Fidell.



Fidell said Olejniczak serves voluntarily and has no agreement forcing him to stay in the military. The military has been having trouble meeting its recruiting goals since hostilities began in Iraq, and many reservists have been called for multiple tours of duty, Fidell said.



According to the suit, Army regulations say the only reason non-obligated officers cannot resign is if they're under investigation, in a time of war, a national emergency has been declared or "under other conditions which may necessitate such action."



Fidell said that none of those three conditions apply and Olejniczak should be discharged.



"He's not subject to any stop- loss order," Fidell said.



A spokeswoman for the Army's 85th Division said she would check into the suit and likely have a comment Wednesday.



Olejniczak could not be reached for comment. The suit said he has earned a Meritorious Service medal, three Army Commendation medals, seven Army Achievement medals, an Army Service medal, two Army Reserve Component Achievement medals and a Southwest Asia Service medal with a bronze service star.



"Mr. Olejniczak is extremely proud of his service," said Fidell.



Daily Herald

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