Ready Reserve
The activating of the individual ready reserve caught my attention
DefenseLINK News: Army to Call up 5,600 Individual Ready . I've been following stories on it for a couple of weeks now
CNN.com - Army to recall former military members - Jun 29, 2004, just to see what sort of reaction it seems to be getting. One thing stands out from the
Google Search: Individual Ready Reserve i've done on it: the commentary is coming more from local media outlets or specialized media (
European and Pacific Stars & Stripes) - particularly local TV news and papers
HoustonChronicle.com - Ready Reserve: Call-up shows Iraq war has stretched Army too thin, and not national media.
This was called the inactive reserve in my day. The contract quite clearly spelled out a six year obligation, no one tried to hide that from you. Most Navy enlistments were 3-3 or 4-2, some of the more technical ratings required all six years active because they had to spend the first two years training you. I kept all my uniforms with me for my first few years in college, because until you got that letter at the end of six years, they expected you to. This is not a call-up of civilians but a call up of people who still have residual obligation. As some have pointed out, this isn't unprecedented - it was done in the last gulf war, and while unusual is not bad or even unwise. The Army isn't broken yet - by the civilian fools and amateur hour clowns who are running it. But only because of the deep layers of contingency and redundancy that are built into it. Related to this is another example of quick thinking to stave more unpleasant options such as a draft or abandoning defense commitments in Asia. Despite what some people are saying the draft has to be a closer at hand option that is let on. The New York Times reports
Other Services Eyed by Army for Recruiting. Since the Army has been allotted a temporary enlargement and the Air Force and Navy are undergoing cuts, the army is aiming re-enlistment bonuses to get people to switch
It is worrying that we have arrived at such a deep level of the bag of tricks only a year into this war and with no clear end yet in sight. More worrying is the idea that the real damage to recruitment and especially retention won't be clear for another year. I don't think this call up will be that damaging, simply because it is part of a service members original enlistment, is attached to the end of it and everyone is aware of it. More damaging in the long run is the heavy burden being placed on the active reserves which are disrupting civilian obligations to job and family repeated and extensively into their nominally civilian lives.
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