ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy on Thursday joined two of its sister services in lifting its stop-loss restrictions, and released its enlisted hospital corpsmen to separate or retire from the service as planned, officials said.
The roughly 300 sailors impacted by the stop-loss restriction will go through a phase-out process, and be able to leave the Navy beginning June 1. The process should see the last of those involuntarily held leaving no later than Sept. 15, officials said.
In early April, Navy officials targeted corpsmen with navy enlisted classification code 8404 (field medical service technician) in pay grades E-1 through E-6 because they were deemed essential for the mission at hand — combat operations in Iraq.
There are several guidelines spelled out in Naval Administrative message 121/03, to include:
• Sailors who had been approved for transfer to the Fleet Reserve, but whose orders were canceled because of stop loss, have until Dec. 31 to resubmit those transfer requests.
Those who were affected and wish to stay Navy must submit the proper re-enlistment paperwork. Extensions of expired enlistments are not authorized.
• Sailors who had submitted a waiver to the high year of tenure policy, which outlines the maximum number of years an enlisted sailor may serve, and had that waiver returned, must resubmit it immediately. Those beyond the tenure limits, and who don’t have a waiver, must separate by Sept. 15, or submit a fleet reserve request by Dec. 31.
On Wednesday, the Air Force lifted its restrictions, which the service put into place March 13. And Monday, the Marine Corps lifted its restrictions, which had covered all military occupational specialties since January.
The Army plans to lift stop loss for active-duty soldiers within the next two weeks, but announced Wednesday a phased lift of the stop-movement order that now affects all active-duty soldiers deployed to Iraq. Stop movement halts permanent change of station moves.
