This post was co-authored with Garett Reppenhagen, Servicemember Liaison for Veterans For America.

When men and women in our country join the military, we enter into a sacred contract with them that obliges us honor their willingness to serve and sacrifice - end of story.

One of the most egregious violations of this mutual trust is something called "stop loss" - a very disturbing practice by which our men and women in uniform are forced to continue to serve in the military, after they had expected that they could leave.

Between now and the end of President George Bush's term in office on January 20, 2009, almost half of the Soldiers scheduled to deploy to Iraq are members of our National Guard. Never before in the history of our all-volunteer military have we relied so heavily on the National Guard for such a long period of time to serve overseas.

Never.

Over the past six plus years, we have sent over 260,000 members of our National Guard to Iraq and Afghanistan and while the focus and heated debate in Washington may have turned away from Iraq, every day, we are sending more and more members of the National Guard overseas.

Veterans for America (VFA) strongly applauds Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) for introducing H.R. 6205, the Stop-loss Compensation Act, which requires that U.S. servicemembers whose tours of duty are involuntarily extended, commonly known as "stop-loss," receive special pay for the duration of their extension.

Veterans for America applauds General David H. Petraeus for stating today in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that he will probably recommend this fall that the U.S. military reduce its troop presence in Iraq by an additional Army Brigade Combat Team.

This morning, President Bush will make an announcement about the situation in Iraq. For every American who supports the troops, I hope that you will listen carefully when he announces that troop deployments are being reduced from the current back-breaking 15 months to 12 months at the end of the summer.

In short, this is a hollow political announcement.

Next week, General David Petraeus will travel to Capitol Hill and make his report to Congress on the war in Iraq. If, as expected, he announces a pause in the withdrawal in troops from Iraq, our Congress must say "no" for the sake of our military and of our servicemembers.

We can not pause the withdrawal of our troops because we are seeing, everyday, the absolute devastation our wars, with frequent, long, often extended deployments, are having on our men and women in uniform.

How can we constantly churn our troops like this? How can we consciously compound the wounds of war? We are sending men and women back for fourth and fifth tours of duty when the Department of Defense, by its own estimation, says that with each additional tour, troops are 60% more likely to develop severe post-combat mental health issues.

The most important lesson the United States should learn from our Iraq experience is this:

U.S. military success is dependent upon the health of our military.

When our country spends the better part of a trillion dollars per year on "defense," how is it possible that it takes two months for a soldier who has just come home from Iraq to get an appointment with a mental health professional? How is it possible that our military still re-deploys troops who are suffering from traumatic brain injuries?

After I was shot and paralyzed in Vietnam, I spent over a year in the Kingsbridge Veterans Hospital in New York City, learning how to live life as a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair.

My ward was the focus of a Life magazine cover story that portrayed the conditions within the hospital as a "medical slum."  That issue was the second-highest selling in the history of the magazine.

As the Walter Reed scandal and subsequent revelations show, when it comes to failing to provide our wounded troops and veterans with the medical care they need, history is repeating itself.

Then, as now, some troops and veterans become so beaten down by the bureaucracy, the lack of care, and the general indifference to their situation, that in despair, they take their own lives.