Army Using Policy to Deny Reserve Officer Resignations

At least ten offices in the Army Reserve have been forced to sue the military for their release, after the Army began using an unpublicized policy—quietly begun in 2004, and reinforced in 2005—to refuse the resignations of officers who have completed their mandatory eight years but not served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or in a “homeland defense” posting. The policy has led the Army to hold at least 400 reserve officers past the point of their agreed service, in step with the stop-loss “backdoor draft” that has similarly forced at least 13,000 soldiers to serve past the mandatory limit.