Unbelievable: IRR to Iraq

In my mind, this is the most disturbing piece of military manpower news yet:

A group of Army Reserve soldiers rarely tapped for duty could soon be heading to Iraq, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The troops, part of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), could be called to fill holes in units deploying to Iraq as part of the upcoming rotation of troops later this year.

I do not know how IRR works for enlisted personnel. Officers commissioned through ROTC with scholarships and assigned to active duty are obligated to spend four years on active duty, which everyone knows. That's why whenever someone asks me how long my military obligation is, I say four years.

But that is not really true, and the reality is hitting home with a vengeance for some IRR personnel right now. You see, in reality every Army ROTC scholarship contract is actually for eight years of service: four years of active duty, and four years in the IRR.

So when you hear that the Army is going to call up IRR troops, this is what the Army is saying: our manpower is so threatened that we are reactivating soldiers who already served their contracted active duty time, and who have effectively left the military behind and begun new lives. These are not members of the Army Reserve, training with their units every month. These are men and women who have become completely detached from military service, except for the fact that their name remains on the IRR rolls. And now we are going to call them back.

If it sounds like this is just one step short of the draft, I can understand why. It's not quite at that pitch, but it's one step closer. Combined with our redeployments from South Korea and various training centers, I am frankly quite concerned.