Is indentured servitude legal?

A 15-month enlistment? Check Army's fine print
By DeWayne Wickham

Posted 5/16/2005 8:30 PM

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/wickham/2005-05-16-wickham_x.htm

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Appeals court acts


Now if that isn't enough of a rude awakening, a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals might make the Army's latest recruitment offer look even less inviting. A three-judge panel ruled Friday that the Army can use its stop-loss authority to keep people in the service even beyond their full eight-year military obligation.

"We do not minimize the disruption, hardship and risk that extension of his enlistment is causing," the appeals court said of Sgt. Emiliano Santiago, an Oregon Army National Guardsman who sued to keep from being forced to stay on active duty beyond the eight-year period. "For the reasons we have set forth, however, we conclude that the application of the stop-loss order did not breach his enlistment contract."

Other soldiers have mounted legal challenges to the stop-loss policy, but it's not likely that they will prevail where Santiago failed. In times of national emergency — and the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan qualifies as that — the nation's all-volunteer Army has the power to involuntarily extend the time soldiers have to spend on active duty.

But such a practice, while not illegal, is a serious breach of faith. It is also compelling evidence of the need for this nation to return to a military conscription, which would give the Army a steady flow of inductees to fill its ranks. By offering new recruits a 15-month tour of duty, the Army has effectively gutted its own argument against a draft that the longer enlistments of the all-volunteer force are needed to produce better trained soldiers.

The 15-month enlistment is an act of desperation.