Published on Monday, December 6, 2004 by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Eight Soldiers in Iraq, Kuwait to Sue Over Army Policy
by Monica Davey
MORRILTON, ARKANSAS -- The eight soldiers come from places scattered
across the country, from this small town an hour northwest of Little
Rock to cities in Arizona, New Jersey and New York. In Iraq and Kuwait,
where they all work now, most of them hold different jobs in different
units, miles apart. Most have never met.
But the eight share a bond of anger: Each says he has been prevented
from coming home for good by an Army policy that has barred thousands of
soldiers from leaving Iraq this year even though the terms of enlistment
they signed up for have run out.
And each of these eight soldiers has separately taken the extraordinary
step of seeking legal help, through late-night Internet searches and e-
mail inquiries from their camps in the conflict zone, or through rounds
of phone calls by an equally frustrated wife or mother back home.
With legal support from the Center for Constitutional Rights, a liberal-
leaning public-interest group, lawyers for the eight men say they will
file a lawsuit today in federal court in Washington challenging the Army
policy known as "stop-loss."
Last spring, the Army instituted the policy for all troops headed to
Iraq and Afghanistan, calling it a way to promote continuity within
deployed units and to avoid bringing new soldiers in to fill gaps left
in units by those who would otherwise have gone home when their
enlistments ran out. If a soldier's unit is still in Iraq or
Afghanistan, that soldier cannot leave even when his or her enlistment
time runs out.
Since then, several National Guardsmen who received orders to report for
duty in California and Oregon have taken the policy to court, but the
newest lawsuit is the first such challenge by a group of soldiers. And
these soldiers are already overseas -- transporting supplies, working
radio communications and handling military contracts, somewhere in the
desert.
"You should know I'm not against the war," said David Qualls, one of the
plaintiffs and a former full-time soldier who signed up in July 2003 for
a one-year stint in the Arkansas National Guard but now expects to be in
Iraq until next year.
"This just isn't about that. This is a matter of fairness. My job was to
go over and perform my duties under the contract I signed. But my year
is up and it's been up. Now I believe that they should honor their end
of the contract."
Qualls, 35, who says he sometimes speaks his mind even to his superiors,
is the only one among the eight whose real name will appear on the
lawsuit against the Army's military leaders. The rest, who fear
retribution from the Army -- including more dangerous assignments in
Iraq -- are described only as John Does 1 through 7.
Experts not involved in the case say the government generally has been
granted broad legal authority when it comes to the obligations of
soldiers in matters of national security and times of conflict.
"The courts have traditionally ceded to the military," said Gary Solis,
who teaches law at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. "Even if the
gents win at the trial level, the government is not going to quit. They
cannot afford to. There is a potential cascade effect here."
.
|
