State of the Army

[pecunium]

I know I have a small readership, but recent events cause me to think it might be worth tossing a little bread on the waters.

This past week, while tooling about (I think it was to the airport to retrieve our guest from China) I heard news that the DoD was planning to call up the IRR.

That is, for those of you not up on Acronym, the Individual Ready Reserve... those soldier who are either within eight years of the date they enlisted, and have left active duty, or who have; for whatever reason, elected to take a Active Reserve contract and move it to the IRR (in the IRR one is not required to attend drill, the most one is expected to do is prove, once a year, that one still has a uniform).

The main difference between an IRR call-up and a Ready Reserve (Guard and Reserve troops who attend drill every month, you know, one weekend a month, and two-weeks a year) is that they can call people up one by one.

They need a mechanic, no need to call up an entire company, because we have one here in the IRR.

I can see two reasons for this, one there are not enough troops in the units they are calling up or they don't have the people in the ranks (officers are a bit different, technically they can be recalled to duty until they are dead, in practice this is rarely used, but the current Army Chief of Staff was so recalled).

In either case this is a bad sign, it means we can't meet the needs we have with the troops on hand. Rumor has it that some people are being selected not because they have military skills, but because the skills of their civilian jobs are needed in the Army (which explains things I heard about calling up linguists and tech specialists from the civilian sector... sort of a rough and ready version of what the Army calls cross-levelling).

It will also, I think, play poorly in Peoria. There are grumbles in the ranks about how the Active Reserves are being used too much, family members who are asking soldiers to get out (it's a maxim that if the spouse thinks the soldier should/can stay in, the soldier will, but if the spouse wants the soldier out, no more re-enlistments) and this is not going to go over well with husbands and wives who were happy the troop left active duty.

And those people have opinions, they are vocal. If one takes parents into account the 5,600 people being called up will have at least a thousand people who have strong feelings about the matter, and they will speak out... after all who is going to be able to tell them to keep quiet when they can retort... "My "x" is in Iraq right now."

But it bodes ill for our security... we are pulling water from deeper in the well, someday it will run dry.

TK

Comments

[airneail.livejournal.com]

My best friend was discharged from the army almost eight years ago after only serving three years, do you know if she's eligible? (She's off working a camp in the mountains right now and probably doesn't know about this happening yet).

I'm most worried about her brother, a cop, who just left the marines.

:(

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The way the system works is that for 8 years, from the date of enlistment, one is obligated to serve, if called. Once called the IRR soldier can be activated for up to 24 months (longer by act of Congress.

So, if your friend did three years, she stopped being subject to recall five years later.

TK