Soldiers to be enlisted longer than they thought.

so, I have no link to this story, becasue It hasn't been published yet. My source is my younger brother, who is currently serving in the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan.

He said that he was told that any soldier whose contracts were not finished by March 1, 2009 would be forced to re-enlist and be sent to Iraq for a whole year. Here's the kicker- they can either voluntarily re-enlist, whereupon they would recieve a $7,000 bonus and be sent to Iraq, or not re-enlist, and be sent to Iraq anyway without the $7,000.

What really sucks is that his contract was to be up on March 9, 2009. He missed it by 8 days!!! 8 days!!!

He has to make his decision by March 1 of this year- a whole year in advance.

This really, really sucks, and I feel so bad for him. He was planning on coming home in a month and finishing his contract in Fort Bragg, but now that has apparently all changed.

Again, this is not official - yet.

I don't know when it will be announced, but this is what I found out a few minutes ago from my Mother who talked to him. she is going to foward me the e-mail in a little while, and I will add it to this thread.

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this is the e-mail his girlfriend sent to my mom:

I wanted to share this information with you- Dave is sorta stuck so to speak and is basically forced to re-enlist. I'm not too happy about it and neither is he but here is the break down and if i didn't clarify enough, let me know, i'm trying to make it make sense but i don't even understand it all:

So.. Dave's contract for the Army ends March 2009. He'd be done with the Army and we'd move on with life.

His unit wasn't supposed to deploy again until September of 2009. This would allow him to leave the army on time and not worry about having to leave the country again.

Well.. now, his unit is scheduled to leave June 2009. So anyone who's contract is up after March 1, 2009, they get "stop-lossed" and HAVE to go to Iraq for a YEAR.

The ONLY options he has are these:

1. Do nothing and deploy again because he has to -get out September 2010

2. Re-Enlist and stay with his until and get a $7,000 bonus and
deploy in June '09 and get out of the Army Sept. 20010 ( same as option 1 but with $7,000)

3. Re-Enlist and transfer to Ft. Knox in the hope he'd be able to help train new soldiers and not deploy.. however, thats not a guarantee he could end up w/ a until that would delploy again and have to go to Iraq

4. Re-Enlist and Change his 'job' and work on computers. He can request to be in the Pa, Md, Dc, Va area, but thats not a guarantee; he could go anywhere in the country . There's a chance he could deploy but if he did, he'd be behind a desk and not much chance for any violence he'd be involved in.
He'd get out of the Army around the end of 2011.

So.. since he has only these 5 options, i chose number 4 ... that way he might deploy,BUT if he did, he'd be in a safe place, and if not, he's in the US- which still sucks bc he may not be anywhere near the east coast

there's a lot of information that you nor i completely understand but i think I broke it down enough.

i'm trying to remember its out of our control and be thankful he had those options, but really, it's not ideal!

He has limited internet use, so I will certainly keep you posted and updated but he will HAVE to sign papers before March 1 in a few weeks otherwise he will go with his unit and not get any kind of signing bonus.

Talk to you soon

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