Question about the U.S. military's "stop-loss" program

[brentspeak]

which has made some troops serve past the time when their voluntary commitments have concluded:

Is this an Army-only program, or are the Marine Corps affected, too? I'm trying to figure out why some of the Marines implicated in the Haditha incident were on their third tour-of-duty, which would place an incomprehensible amount of strain on anybody.

[Liberal OIF Vet]

1. Stop-Loss

Marines are not being stop-lossed. They were stop-loss during the original stage of the war (January-August 2003), but have not since that time

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

2. All services can stop loss. Army, Navy, USAF, USMC. The answer to

the other part of your question, why these people were on their third tour of duty: It's so that people like the shrub family never have to go on their first. Pretty simple.

[Liberal OIF Vet]

3. Third tour....

Sadly, you have a point. To be more specific though, The reason why Marines are doing 3 tours (some are up to 4 and 5 tours) is because the Marines are not structured for occupation. The Marine Corps has 173,000 people. The Army, by contrast, has 400,000+ on active duty. So due to our lower numbers (and the fact that Marines only do 7 month tours vice the 1 year tours the Army does), we rotate over there much quickly that the Army.