DoD announces 'stop-loss' program details

Acting Secretary of the Air Force F. Whitten Peters and Chief of Staff Gen. Michael E. Ryan announced their decision May 26 to implement Stop-Loss, suspending normal separations and retirements for people in critical career fields effective June 15.

Peters and Ryan emphasized that they plan to keep disruption of the lives of Air Force men and women to a minimum, and to avoid adverse effects on promotions. The Air Force will hold up only separations deemed critical to preserving mission capability. The driving force behind the decision is the ongoing air campaign in the Balkans.

"We do not take this action lightly," said Peters. "Stop-Loss is designed to preserve the critical skills essential to support our missions in Europe and Southwest Asia, while remaining prepared to meet another major regional contingency. Stop-Loss will also allow us to keep our training base intact, so that we will be able to reconstitute our forces quickly when Kosovo operations cease."

Peters also acknowledged the toll taken on the total force.

"We are acutely aware that ours is a volunteer force and that this action, while essential to meeting our worldwide obligations, is inconsistent with fundamental principles of voluntary service," he said. "We also know that this action will adversely affect the lives of airmen and their families.

"We have done our best to minimize this disruption by limiting the career fields to which Stop-Loss will apply. On the individual level, we will look at the hardship caused by Stop-Loss on a case-by-case basis and do all we can to offer appropriate relief."

Stop-Loss will affect 40 percent, or approximately 120,000, of those now on active duty. Slightly more than 6,000 airmen who have requested and received permission to separate or retire from the Air Force between now and December will be required to remain in uniform as a result of Stop-Loss. Stop-Loss also temporarily blocks changes of status of members of the Air Guard and Reserve that would allow a member to leave units at risk for call-up.

Twenty-three percent of Air Force specialty codes have been identified as the critical skills needed to perform the mission.

By law, Stop-Loss may be used only to suspend temporarily voluntary separations (to include discharges and resignations), retirements and promotions of members of the armed forces while a presidential call-up or mobilization is in effect. In this instance, Stop-Loss will last indefinitely, pending further reviews in the coming months, or the termination of presidential call-up for Kosovo.

"We take Stop-Loss seriously and are working hard to ensure the lives of our Air Force members, their families and their civilian employers are not disrupted any longer than is necessary to meet our national commitments," Ryan said. "It is important that all of these people understand how seriously we take this program and how much we appreciate the individual sacrifices that will be made because of it."

The following AFSCs are affected by Stop-Loss:

Officer AFSCs: fully qualified or awarded AFSC or aero rating (including all UAV operators). Where an officer is multi-qualified, practical utility will determine Stop-Loss applicability:

-- 11XX (pilots, except "slick" C-130 pilots (11AXK) not assigned to AETC undergraduate flying training instructor duty, EA-6B, and OSA [C-9, C-12, C-20, C-21, VC-25, C-32, C-37, C-135, and C-137])

-- 12XX (navigators, except "slick" C-130 navigators (12AXC) not assigned to AETC undergraduate flying training instructor duty, EA-6B, and OSA [VC-25, C-32, C-135, and C-137])

-- 13BX (air battle managers)

-- 13MX (air traffic control)

-- 14NX (intelligence)

-- 15WX (weather)

-- 21AX (aircraft maintenance-munitions)

-- 21GX (logistics plans)

-- 21LX (logistician: only lieutenant colonels with core AFSC of 21AX or 21 GX)

-- 33SX (communications and information)

-- 71SX (AFOSI)

Enlisted Control AFSCs: Unless specifically identified, all prefixes and suffixes to the AFSCs listed below apply, except "slick" C-130 flight engineers (1A1XX) and "slick" C-130 loadmasters (1A2XX)

-- 1A0XX (in-flight refueling)

-- 1A000 (chief enlisted manager in-flight refueling)

-- 1A1X1B and 1A1X1C (flight engineer)

-- 1A100 (chief enlisted manager flight engineer)

-- 1A2XX (aircraft loadmaster)

-- 1A200 (chief enlisted manager loadmaster)

-- 1A3XX (airborne communications system, except those assigned to C-9, C-20, VC-25, C-32, C-135 or C-137)

-- 1A300 (chief enlisted manager airborne communication system)

-- 1A4X1 and 1A4X1D (airborne battle management systems)

-- 1A400 (chief enlisted manager airborne battle management systems)

-- 1A5XX (airborne missions systems)

-- 1A500 (chief enlisted manager airborne missions systems)

-- 1CXXX (command control systems operations)

-- 1N0X1 (intelligence applications)

-- 1N000 (chief enlisted manager intelligence applications)

-- 1N1X1 (imagery analysis)

-- 1N2X1 (signals intelligence production)

-- 1N200 (chief enlisted manager signals intelligence production)

-- 1N3X0 (cryptological linguist)

-- 1N3X3A, 1N3X3D, 1N3X3E, 1N3X3K, 1N3X3L and 1N3X3M, (Slavic crypto linguist)

-- 1N4X1 (signals intelligence analysis)

-- 1N5X1 (electronic signals intelligence exploitation

-- 1N500 (chief enlisted manager electronic signals intelligence)

-- 1N6X1 (electronic systems security assessment)

-- 1N600 (chief enlisted manager electronic systems security)

-- 1T0X1 (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training)

-- 1T1X1 (life support)

-- 1T100 (chief enlisted manager life support)

-- 1T2X1 (pararescue)

-- 1T200 (chief enlisted manager pararescue)

-- 1W0X1A (weather)

-- 1W000 (chief enlisted manager weather)

-- 1W0X1A (forecaster)

-- 2A0X1 (avionics test station and components)

-- 2A1X1 (avionics sensors maintenance)

-- 2A1X2 (avionics guidance and control systems)

-- 2A1X3 (communications and navigation systems)

-- 2A1X4 (airborne surveillance radar systems)

-- 2A1X7 and X2A1X7 (electronic warfare systems)

-- 2A3X1 (F-15/F-111 avionic systems)

-- 2A3X2 (F-16 avionic systems)

-- 2A3X3 (tactical aircraft maintenance)

-- 2A4X1 (aircraft guidance and control systems)

-- 2A4X2 (aircraft communication and navigation systems)

-- 2A4X3 (aircraft command control and communications and navigation systems)

-- 2A5X1 (aerospace maintenance)

-- 2A5X2 (helicopter maintenance)

-- 2A5X3 (bomber avionics systems)

-- 2A6X1 (aerospace propulsion; except senior master sergeant)

-- 2A6X2 (aerospace ground equipment; except senior master sergeant)

-- 2A6X3 (aircrew egress systems)

-- 2A6X4 (aircraft fuel systems)

-- 2A6X5 (aircraft hydraulic systems)

-- 2A6X6 (aircraft electrical and environmental systems)

-- 2A7X1 (aircraft metals technology)

-- 2A7X2 (nondestructive inspection)

-- 2A7X3 (aircraft structural maintenance)

-- 2A7X4 (survival equipment)

-- 2E1X1 (satellite and wideband communications equipment)

-- 2P0X1 (precision measurement equipment laboratory)

-- 2R0X1 (maintenance data systems analysis)

-- 2R1X1 (maintenance scheduling)

-- 2T2XX (air transportation)

-- 2W0X1 (munitions systems)

-- 2W1X1, K2W1X1, Q2W1X1 and X2W1X1 (aircraft armament systems)

-- 3C0X1 (communications/computers systems operations)

-- 3C0X2 (communications/computers systems programmer)

-- 3C1X2 (electromagnetic spectrum management)

-- 3C2X1 (communications/computer systems control, except senior master sergeant)

-- 3P0X1 (security forces)

-- 5R0X1 (chaplain service support, except senior and chief master sergeant)

-- 7S0X1 (office of special investigations)

-- 7S000 (chief enlisted manager office of special investigations)

-- 8S100 (sensor operator)

-- 9S100 (applied geophysics)