Letter to the editor in my paper today about stop loss ( 21 months )

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/...651089,00.html

Our troops are soldiers, not police

My wife and I have a son who has served honorably for the four years he has been in the Army, including one year in Iraq during the war.

He was to get out in November and come home. But the Army just informed him that home is now going to be Iraq and that he should be ready to deploy to Iraq in November.

The stop-loss order will keep him from coming home, and not for a short period. He will have to complete the full deployment of some 12 to 18 months, and the lockdown when they come back will take him approximately 21 months beyond his scheduled completion date.

My wife and I, as well as my son, recognize the need for seasoned help in war. We need experienced warriors. But since the hostilities were said to have ended, our warriors have been turned into glorified policemen. We support the Iraqi police and security forces. Instead of being the soldiers we trained them to be, they are being told by the news that we do not want to offend, so they stay off the streets in daytime so as to not upset the locals.

Why do we need my son, or any other son or daughter of this country, to have his tour extended to be a glorified policeman? Remember the term "volunteer Army"? Last time I checked, the dictionary did not include back-door draft as a definition for volunteer. And I would like to know when we started spelling "soldier" p-o-l-i-c-e-m-a-n. Am I the only one who sees a problem here?

Randy Miles

Collierville