I am an American Soldier who has great plans of flying and going to college, maybe living a normal life one of these days (before I'm fucking 30), but all of my plans have been put on hold due to a little thing called stop-loss.

Stop-loss is the military denying a soldier the termination of his contract at the original agreed upon date. Stop-loss was created by congress after the Viet nam war. Title 10, United States Code, section 12305(a)* states, "the President may suspend any provision of law relating to promotion, retirement, or separation applicable to any member of the armed forces who the President determines is essential to the national security of the United States" Contractually, soldiers agree to stop loss. In your contract it looks like so: "In the event of war, my enlistment in the Armed Forces continues until six (6) months after the war ends, unless the enlistment is ended sooner by the President of the United States." Many recruiters, mine included, will point this out, just to write it off as BS. My recruiter, Sergeant Ryan Simms, from the recruiting station in Crawfordsville, IN as well as the people at the Military Entrance and Processing Station(MEPS) in Indianapolis, IN all told me that this never happens. They likened it to a draft, to be used only in cases of extreme emergency. This is excluding the fact that this oversight often occurs when young, often poor, people are dazzled, by a $20,000-$40,000 bonus. What would you do?

I will have to go to Iraq one more time for what is projected to be 12 months. The last time they told me that it was 15 months. I am tired of this war. I never agreed with it, but I need the money for college as I was never raised in a "well-off" family. I also love the Army and what it is supposed to stand for when it isn't being used as a corporate puppet. In this blog I will cover past, present, and future highlights in both my personal life and the "war on terrorism".

I am an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

*Thanks Wikipedia