Concerning Re-Enlistment

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Evan M. Knappenberger
Branch of service: United States Army (USA)
Unit: 1-4th Infantry
Rank: Cog
Home: Bellingham, Washington
Served in: Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri; Ft. Huachuca, Arizona; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Carson, Colorado; Fort Irwin, California; Udairi, Kuwait; Taji, Iraq




Concerning Re-Enlistment
by Evan M. Knappenberger | Thu, 08/16/2007 - 3:33pm


Concerning the mass re-enlistment ceremony on Camp Victory, Baghdad, on the fourth of July, an obvious political stunt; I feel it is necessary to provide perspective about something immediately tinged with the odious political stench emanating from Camp Victory these days.

I myself am recently returned from my year of service in the 4th Infantry on Camp Taji -just north of Camp Victory- and these ceremonies are a familiar sight there any time of year. What makes them newsworthy on Independence day? Perhaps it is the fact that John McCain bothered to show up; maybe it is just good timing. Or maybe the ceremony was orchestrated as a political maneuver with the intent of deceiving the world as to the truly sad state of the US Army. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, "A quest for morale is proof of its lack."

The Army, under mounting political pressure from an embattled administration and unable to protect itself (because it is being run by spineless pseudo-intellectuals like General Petraeus) has turned increasingly to underhanded appeals for re-enlistment. I know this firsthand.

Foremost is the Stop-Loss policy, which plays a decisive role in getting soldiers to re-enlist. It is a simple choice: re-enlist for $10,000 and shake hands with a Senator, or get stop-lossed and stuck in the Army as a perpetual indentured servant. The end result is higher re-enlistment rates, and ultimately the preservation of the myth of an 'all-volunteer force', which, in the vision of the Bush administration, is straining at the bit to get down to business with the nasty foreign terrorists threatening our freedom. This is part of a greater "marketing campaign" (in the words of Wolfowitz) that portrays the Army as the compass of the moral Majority, and re-enlistment as the indicator of good morale. All of these premises are false. The truth is: neither is the Army "all-volunteer;" nor are there foreign terrorists threatening American freedom from just outside the gates of Baghdad International.

I have to ask: which group is the intended target for these ornate ceremonies? Is it the soldiers, desperately grasping to any shred of evidence that the war they are fighting is just? Is it the American people, trying to reassure themselves that things are all fine and well?

At any rate, this Iraq veteran's esteem drops every time he sees the energy of officials like McCain and Petraeus wasting their time on speeches and unnecessary officium instead of keeping the bloodthirsty terrorists from digging their nasty fangs into the jugular of freedom in places like Yusufiyah, Falahat, and Adhamiyah. Just what is the cost of our moral ineptitude in this epic struggle?

I am currently in the service and the regs that I have seen do not allow the Army to keep you as "a perpetual indentured servant".

Current regs only allow for a 365 day extension under stoploss.