It is separate from the cessation of a permanent change of station (PCS) move for a member still in military service (a process known as stop-move).
For opponents, "involuntary extension" is contrary to the notion of voluntary service and undermines popular support for the conflict.
"[2] The use of stop-loss has been criticized by activists and some politicians as an abuse of the spirit of the law, on the basis that Congress has not formally declared war.
During August 2007, Iraq Veterans Against the War, an activist organization of former and current service members, announced a national "Stop the Stop-Loss" campaign at a press conference where they were holding a week-long vigil in a tower erected on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Other anti stop-loss vigils occurred in Bellingham, Washington, and Colorado Springs, Colorado.
On March 10 and 11, 2008, a group of college students from the organization Our Spring Break, supported by Code Pink and Iraq Veterans Against the War, as well as several other organizations, issued symbolic stop-loss "orders" to every member of both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate in protest of both the practice of stop-lossing, and of the Iraq War.
[5] Sherman was a sergeant in the U.S. Air Force under an enlistment contract that explicitly limited his active duty service to four years.
§ 673c, authorizing the President to suspend any provision of law relating to military retirement or separation of anyone determined to be essential.
Further, the Court was reluctant, when the provisions were in evident conflict, to impair the President's ability to respond to a matter of national security.
The first legal challenge to the contemporary stop-loss policy came in August 2004, with a lawsuit by David Qualls, a National Guardsman in California.
In October 2004, a "John Doe" lawsuit was filed by an anonymous National Guardsman facing stop-loss, challenging the validity of the law that authorized it.
[10] Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, as one of his first acts in his position (he assumed the office December 18, 2006), penned a memo compelling commanders to "minimize" the stop-lossing of soldiers.
"[13] In the 2005 "Witches of Mass Destruction" episode of American television series Boston Legal, Alan Shore represents a client suing the US military for the loss of her brother, who had to stay in Iraq beyond the time specified in his National Guard service contract due to the stop-loss program.
In the September 2008 season 2 premiere of the Canadian television series The Border, three fictional American soldiers desert to Canada by swimming the Niagara River, using stop-loss as their legal basis for refugee status.