COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: Stop-Loss
Out-of-uniform troops called to serve in Iraq
Rebecca Santana, ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 20, 2006
CAMP
ANACONDA, Iraq — Spc. Chris Carlson had been out of the U.S. Army
for two years and was working at Costco in California when he received
notice that he was being called back into service.
The 24-year-old is one of thousands of soldiers and Marines who have
been deployed to Iraq under a policy that allows military leaders to
recall troops who have left the service but still have time left on
their contract.
"I thought it was crazy," said Carlson, who found himself protecting
convoys on Iraq’s roads as part of a New Jersey National Guard
unit. "Never in a million years did I think they would call me back."
Although troops are allowed to leave active duty after a few years of
service, they generally still have time left on their contract with the
military that is known as "inactive ready reserve" status, or IRR.
During that time, they have to let their service know their current
address, but they don’t train, draw a paycheck or associate in
any other way with the military.
But with active-duty units already completing multiple tours in Iraq,
the Pentagon has employed the rarely used tactic of calling people back
from IRR status.
According to the U.S. Army Reserve, about 14,000 soldiers on IRR status
have been called to active duty since March 2003 and about 7,300 have
been deployed to Iraq. The Marine Corps has mobilized 4,717 Marines who
were classified as IRR since Sept. 11, and 1,094 have been deployed to
Iraq, according to the Marine Forces Reserve.
The 1 st Squadron of the 167 th Cavalry RSTA, which is based in
Lincoln, Neb., and oversees the New Jersey guard unit in Iraq, has
about 40 IRR soldiers within its ranks of roughly 1,000 soldiers.
Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Arlington, Va.-based
Lexington Institute, said part of the reason that the military has
called up so many people who were on reserve status is that certain
skill sets were concentrated in the reserves after the Cold War ended.
But he said the sheer number of IRR soldiers being mobilized also is a
sign that the military doesn’t have enough people to fight the
war.
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