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Washington DC– Today, U.S. Representative John Conyers, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus participated in a Press Conference hosted by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and the Veterans Institute for Security and Democracy. Conyers made the following remarks:
“Some 10,000 military personnel, including those in reserve and national guard units, are affected by “stop loss” orders and other involuntary extensions of their periods of service. The impact of the stop loss order is to force military personnel whose discharge dates occur when their unit is designated to deploy or re-deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan to extend their military service involuntarily, perhaps as long as 12 to 15 months. Many of these soldiers have already been away from their jobs and families for a year, resulting in financial and personal hardship. This policy, a result of the Pentagon’s miscalculations regarding the number of soldiers required in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, amounts to a selective draft for those who have already fulfilled their service commitment.
“The Military Fairness Act of 2004 requires the Pentagon to compensate any member of the uniformed services entitled to basic pay whose enlistment or period of obligated service is extended or whose eligibility for retirement is extended pursuant to a Stop Loss order. The Act instructs the Pentagon to pay $2,000 a month to each service member for each month he or she is kept beyond the end of their enlistment period. The current Stop Loss order, announced on June 2, 2004 will keep over 10,000 service men and women in the field beyond their enlistment period. A third of those affected are National Guard or Reservists.
“Senator Lautenberg’s Act will be offered as an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2005 Defense Appropriations Bill. The amendment is retroactive to March, 2003 so that any member of the Armed Services caught in the Stop Loss gap since the start of the Iraq war will be compensated.
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