Is it really that bad over there... Any former enlisted soldier who did not serve at least eight years on active duty is in the Individual Ready Reserve pool, as are all officers who have not resigned their commission. Army to Call Up Retired, Discharged Troops By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer WASHINGTON - The Army is preparing to notify about 5,600 retired and discharged soldiers who are not members of the National Guard or Reserve that they will be involuntarily recalled to active duty for possible service in Iraq or Afghanistan, Army officials said Tuesday. It marks the first time the Army has called on the Individual Ready Reserve, as this category of reservists is known, in substantial numbers since the 1991 Gulf War. Several hundred of them have volunteered for active-duty service since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Those who are part of the involuntary call up are likely to be assigned to National Guard or Reserve units that have been mobilized for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to Army officials who discussed some details Tuesday on condition they not be identified because a public announcement was planned for Wednesday. Members of Congress were being notified of the decision Tuesday, the officials said. Unlike members of the National Guard and Reserve, the individual reservists do not perform regularly scheduled training. Any former enlisted soldier who did not serve at least eight years on active duty is in the Individual Ready Reserve pool, as are all officers who have not resigned their commission. The Army has been reviewing its list of 118,000 eligible individual reservists for several weeks in search of qualified people in certain high-priority skill areas like civil affairs. Link
This is so very wrong... a student told me that her Dad was told that he might be called up and was pressured to re-enlist 6 months ago for other duties or face the chance that he would be shipped to Iraq using this contingency. I guess they weren't kidding.
The Office of the Chief, Public Affairs, will host a media roundtable tomorrow, Wed., June 30, announcing the Army’s start to notify approximately 5,600 Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) Soldiers of their pending mobilization to active duty in support of the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Current plans call for IRR Soldiers to be brought on active duty over an extended period in several phased groups, from July through December 2004. The Soldiers will be assigned to designated mobilizing Army Reserve and National Guard units based upon the needs of the Army. Soldiers will be given a minimum 30 days advance notice to report. Although the Secretary of Defense authorized an involuntary mobilization of IRR Soldiers in January 2004, the Army has made every effort to minimize the call-up’s impact by first contacting individual IRR Soldiers and soliciting volunteers, prior to initiating mandatory call-ups. The Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) consists of over 118,000 trained Soldiers who may be called upon to fill vacancies in Army Reserve units and may replace Soldiers in Active and Reserve Units. Part of the Army's Ready Reserve, the IRR involves individuals who have had training, served previously in the Active Component or the Selected Reserve (such as a member of an Army Reserve unit), and may have some period of military service obligation remaining. Unlike new recruits, these are seasoned, experienced Soldiers who can contribute significantly to Army readiness. All Soldiers have a statutory eight-year military service obligation (MSO), which is established at the time of entry into military service (Active or Reserve). The IRR, as it exists, is mandated by Congress under Title 10 of the U.S. Code. In accordance with implementing instructions contained in Army Regulation 135-91, members of the IRR can be required to join an Army Reserve unit if they are statutorily obligated and have a skill needed by the Army. US Army public affairs
Soldiers will be given a minimum 30 days advance notice to report. _______________ Can you imagine you've been out of the military for a while started a new life, got a nice job, maybe you’ve started a family then you get the letter/ call from hell. Not only do you have to go back to a military lifestyle for an unknown period of time, but you also have to do your service in one of the two of the worst places on the planet right now.
agreed- more: http://www.blackfive.net/main/2004/06/media_still_doe.html -- Media Still Doesn't Understand the Military The military is not calling back discharged and retired individual soldiers. They are dipping into the Individual Ready Reserve. There is a big difference between calling up IRR soldiers and recalling retired or discharged soldiers. When you sign a contract to enlist or get a commission, it is generally for EIGHT years. You perform four years of Active Duy, then you have four left in the Reserves or National Guard. The branch of the Reserves and National Guard that does not have soldiers perform monthly or annual training is the Individual Ready Reserve. It's usually where the dead weight is put - where those who don't add value are placed to finish out their obligation. For instance, if you had a work conflict with your Reserve committment, you would be placed in the IRR to finish out your committment. If you were consistently absent from the monthly weekend training, you would get placed in the IRR. Everyone in the IRR should know that they can get called to service just like any other Reservist. There are no indications that the military is calling up 7,500 retirees or formerly discharged soldiers - people like me with a DD214 Form indicating termination of service. They are calling up Reservists and National Guardsmen who are in a pool of soldiers in the IRR. It's a resource that can be tapped and it's not a shock to many Reservists or Guardsmen. I've seen the story below at AP. Here is the Fox News version: During the Gulf War in 1991, several doctors were pulled out of retirement to serve during the duration of the war. So, recalling retirees is not entirely uncommon. But, clearly, the article indicates that the media believes that soldiers in the IRR have been retired or discharged. Complete bunk. Can't the AP or Fox hire more military guys to fact check (their ass) or do they have to rely on us MilBloggers. Update: It appears that the AP has adjusted their story. Fox and Reuters are still running the original.
It's usually where the dead weight is put - where those who don't add value are placed to finish out their obligation. -------------------- It is really a shame that the military is stretched so thin and so utterly desperate that they have to recall the no value dead weight soldiers just to fill space.
Unlike members of the Selected Reserve, who drill consistently with an organized unit, soldiers in the IRR aren't required to attend training, nor are they attached to a specific unit. In fact, many IRRists aren't even aware that they're in the reserves at all. But whenever the president sees fit, these troops have to answer the bell. You're in the Army Now (and Forever) How long do you have to be all you can be? By Brendan I. Koerner The U.S. Army is planning to call up close to 6,000 reservists, who will likely be shipped off to Iraq or Afghanistan later this year. Many of the troops will be drawn from the Individual Ready Reserve, which was last tapped en masse more than a decade ago during the first Gulf War. What is the Individual Ready Reserve, exactly, and why is it so seldom used? The IRR is comprised of former full-time soldiers who still have time remaining on their military commitments. When Army hopefuls sign their enlistment contracts, they are agreeing to an eight-year stint in the service. After four years or so, soldiers who do not wish to become lifers are given discharges and return to the civilian world. But they're still on the hook as IRR reservists and are supposed to keep the Army apprised of their whereabouts. Unlike members of the Selected Reserve, who drill consistently with an organized unit, soldiers in the IRR aren't required to attend training, nor are they attached to a specific unit. In fact, many IRRists aren't even aware that they're in the reserves at all. But whenever the president sees fit, these troops have to answer the bell. Title 10 of the United States Code gives the president the authority to muster 200,000 reservists whenever "it is necessary to augment the active forces." Of that 200,000, who must serve for a period of 270 days, no more than 30,000 can be members of the IRR. In addition, in times of grave national emergency, the president can authorize a partial mobilization of the reserves, which would involve up to 1,000,000 troops for a 24-month stretch. A full mobilization, which can occur only if Congress has declared war or during a national emergency, would call up all reserves and military retirees younger than 60 for the duration of the crisis. One problem the Army has encountered with the IRR is the tendency of ex-soldiers to change addresses without notification. Of the 118,000 soldiers in the Army's individual reserve—each branch has its own IRR—approximately 40,000 can't currently be located. The Pentagon has reportedly toyed with the idea of examining IRS records to track down the lost reservists, to the chagrin of privacy advocates. slate
This looked like a good thread to post this column in, by the editor of the Army Times, the Navy Times, the Air Force Times and the Marine Corps Times. It makes for a provocative read. Check it out. State Of The Union: The power of the armed forces By Robert Hodierne In Arlington, Virginia Robert Hodierne, who edits publications about and for the US armed forces, assesses how the views of his readers could affect this year's race for the White House. We're having a pretty lousy summer over here. I don't mean to whine. No-one likes a whiner. But gasoline prices are the highest they've been in 30 years. All of our Olympic athletes seem to be on drugs. We're constantly being warned that terrorists are about to strike. Or not. We're not really sure. And from Iraq we hear the sickening, sucking sound of combat boots stuck in an oozing quagmire. Al Gore lost the 2000 election after a recount of the vote in Florida In some ways, here's the worst of it: We're caught in the middle of a presidential race. Last time around, you may recall, most Americans voted for Al Gore. But because we're a representative democracy and we don't elect our presidents through direct ballots, the other guy won. And you may recall that the key state that gave President George W Bush that win was Florida. Well, the battle continues this time around in the Sunshine State. In America, it used to be if you were convicted of a serious crime - a felony - you lost your right to vote for the rest of your life. Not many places still have that law. But Florida does. Democrats have been busy in court trying to get that law changed. Apparently they see a lot of votes in the felon class. On the flip side, the administration has been working hard to make sure it's easy for our troops overseas to vote. For a boring variety of tax and retirement reasons, our military members tend to register to vote in just a handful of states. Florida is one of them. If, as many assume, most of the military vote Republican, then their votes in Florida the last time around might have tipped the balance for Bush. Unease How the three million men and women in the American military respond at the polls in November could be decisive. And that possibility is a source of even further unease. We Americans love our military. We've just never been very comfortable with it. Over here we have a long, deep suspicion of large, standing professional armies. Being the good small-R republicans that we are, we view such armies as a threat to civil authority, vaguely undemocratic. After all, it was a people's militia - a rabble in arms, as one of your prime ministers so ungenerously described us - that whipped the British army back in the 18th Century. And so we lurched from war to war with small standing armies that we treated with contempt until we needed them. Vietnam We lurched along just fine, building up our small standing armies with conscripts during World War I and World War II. Fine, that is, until Vietnam. When I first went to cover Vietnam as a photographer in 1966, the US military was largely made up of volunteers - professionals. Up to 500,000 US troops were deployed in Vietnam But as the war went on it bled the military dry. By 1970, facing a third and even fourth tour in Vietnam, many of the career military had quit. And many others were dead. By the war's end, the US military was a drugged, undisciplined, unprofessional - well, there's no other word for it - rabble. The cure was to abolish the draft and create an all-volunteer force. Quality The idea was to pay the military well enough and provide enough other benefits to attract a quality group of men and women. The fear about creating an all-volunteer force was that the military would become the employer of last resort; that only America's poorest would end up fighting and dying - which was a pretty argument considering that's who did the fighting and dying when there was a draft. There was also a fear - that latent, small-R republican fear - that a professional standing military would become a society apart. More about that in a minute. The men and women who lead the US military today started their careers in that poisonous, post-Vietnam atmosphere. It took the US military, especially the army, a full, hard decade to drain the poison of Vietnam from its veins. Success And today those leaders are proud of the military they have crafted. There is almost no drug use in the military. Rather than the employer of last resort, it is the job of choice for many, especially minorities. No American institution has paid to send more poor and working-class men and women to college than the military. In many laudable ways, the all-volunteer force as a progressive social experiment has been a success. I'm an editor at a group of private newspapers that serve the military community. We publish Army Times, Air Force Times, Marine Corps Times and Navy Times. We're the largest non-government source of news about the military for the military. Poll Last year we conducted a poll of our active-duty readers. We found that, in many ways, the American military is a society apart. For example, the military is noticeably more religious than most Americans. And they see themselves as more moral. Two-thirds of our sample told us that they believe the military has higher moral values than their society at large. Two-thirds! Politically, they describe their beliefs as more conservative than the rest of the country's. You can go a long time without stumbling across a liberal in uniform. But they surprise you, these folks in the military. Feminism They overwhelmingly approve of women in combat. Who'd think a conservative stronghold like the military would be a bastion of feminism? On the other hand, just as overwhelmingly, they don't want gays serving. In America the general population describes its political affiliation in an almost even three-way split: a third Republican, a third Democrats and a third independent. But almost 60% of our military sample said they were Republicans, nearly twice the rate of the general population. And that, on the surface, would seem to be good news for President Bush. If everyone in the military and all their spouses voted, they'd make up just 5% of the voting population - a noticeable but not necessarily commanding bloc. Symbolic influence But remember Florida. There the military vote could easily have tipped the balance four years ago. But numbers don't tell the whole story. Beyond their actual numerical influence is the military's symbolic influence. They're like canaries in a coal mine. If a sitting Republican president in time of war cannot hold the military vote, then he's in trouble. There are many in the military deeply unhappy with the way the war in Iraq is going. Those photographs of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners disgust the men and women in the military. Remember, these people think of themselves as more moral than the rest of us. Dishonourable And remember, too, those guards weren't active-duty soldiers. They were poorly trained, poorly led reservists, who were thrust into that prison because there aren't enough "real" professional soldiers to do the job set before them in Iraq. Many in the military believe it is dishonourable for those up the chain of command to put all the blame on those lowly enlisted soldiers. Which is what appears to be happening. When my papers wrote an editorial calling for those at the highest levels in government to be held accountable, we heard from our readers. Some were furious. How dare we challenge their bosses? they asked. Others praised our point of view. And privately what we heard from the very highest officers was: Thank you. Breaking point President Bush has promised to keep 138,000 American troops in Iraq for some unknown time. This is straining the American armed forces, some would say to the breaking point. We are pulling troops out of Korea to send to Iraq. We've called back to active duty soldiers who'd thought they'd finished their service. We even shipped out soldiers from the ceremonial "Old Guard." These are soldiers whose last duty was guarding the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It would be like the British sending Beefeaters to Iraq. The situation in Iraq is putting a strain on US armed forces In February, when I was last in Iraq, two-thirds of the soldiers in our best infantry divisions had already served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. They all know that if they stay in the military they will be back for at least a third tour. This week we reached a grim milestone - the 1,000th American death supporting combat operations in the wake of 9/11. The men and women who built this well-crafted war machine feel like the mechanic at the Maserati shop. He watches a rich owner drive his $250,000 high performance car flat out for months without changing the oil. Driven that hard even a Maserati will break. Bitterness It was the prospect of a third combat tour in Vietnam that started hollowing out the professional America military of the 1960s. And that left our armed forces with poorly trained, poorly led troops thrust into jobs they weren't prepared for. Like those reservists at Abu Ghraib. Whatever bitterness exists within the ranks will remain largely hidden. You won't see much in the way of public protest. Our military doesn't do that. Our soldiers believe the civilians - no matter how wrong - are in charge. But in the privacy of the voting booth, they may end up casting their ballots to put different civilians in charge. And, like the last time, the military voting bloc could tip the balance. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3906449.stm
Did you see where they recalled a 68 year old doctor and sent him over to Iraq. They sort of fooled him into thinking he might be going to Germany or Italy. Hey, maybe it isn't too late for Cheney or even Rumsfeld to go. 68 year old going to Iraq
Wow! You can bet this doctor and his family are shocked as hell. I have to respect the guy for sending in that questionaire. That took guts. Did you read the column I posted? I was surprised. The guy really implies at the end that Bush won't be getting the votes of many service men and women that he ordinarily could expect to get, given their typical political leanings. That's certainly the way I read it, anyway.
yeah, screw asking members of congress to send their kids, make them go themselves! That guy's article was very poignant, the only thing is 1) there isn't much left of a military vote 2) It's not like the overseas military vote was counted anyway in the last election.
