Backdoor draft

I periodically read other deployment blogs. Most of them are only sporadically updated, some are a little too personal (over-disclosure), and some are just about plain old opinion-broadcasting. I don't think I avoid disclosure or broadcasting my opinion, but I try to walk the line. I temper myself by trying to think of a potential employer (or customer) accessing the blog. That will hopefully keep me toned down.

I was recently reading a blog about an Army Capt's deployment to Iraq. I feel bad for him. He had separated from active duty but was called up from individual ready reserve (IRR) status two years after he got out. This is known as the "backdoor draft", which includes the Army "stop-loss" program. These are manpower tools that the DoD uses to make up for the fact that someone, somewhere, didn't plan so well for manpower needs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an actual draft is a political nightmare. It's easier and cheaper to make a soldier stay beyond his committment or bring him back from the reserves than it is to recruit and train a new soldier. The IRR is supposed to be the bottom of the barrel, but the US Army has scraped it several times in the last few years. The Marines have also done it, and the USAF to a lesser extent. Lucky for me there are lots of psychologists in the USAF reserves who will be called up before they find me hiding down at the bottom of the barrel from 2009 through 2013.

Anyway, the Army Captain: he's safe at home now, but many of comments and descriptions are consistent with my own experience of spinning up for deployment and the Army in general. He discloses a bit more than I would, but his comments are funny:

"Pursuant to Presidential Executive order of 14 Sep 2001, you are relieved (haha!) from your present reserve status and ordered to report for a period of Active Duty . . . . not to exceed 545 days, unless extended or terminated by proper authority". Those words turned an ordinary day upside down and threw my quasi-normal life out the window.It was about a week before Thanksgiving, and at the time I was still working night shift. I typically slept during the day when I worked nights, and when Rache came home with Chester, he'd sprint upstairs to lick my face and wake me up, and Rache would give me a kiss hello. Today though, Rachael sat on the edge of the bed and started to cry (Chester, unaware anything was wrong, continued to lick my face). She handed me a large yellow envelope marked overnight priority from the Department of Defense. Now I was worried, because the Army never actually pays to send you anything. Inside was a folder with some info, and a one page sheet that looked very familiar - official DA orders. I read the 1st line (quoted above) and my heart sank, and I felt a strange pain like someone had just kicked me in the balls. After about 10 minutes where Rachael sobbed on my shoulder and I yelled disbelieving profanities, we settled down enough to call our parents and break the news. Poor Chester didnt know what the hell was going on, so he kept a timid distance for a while. That was a tough night, and I knew there were going to be many more. I called my boss and told him I wouldnt be in the rest of the week, and being an ex-82nd Airborne guy and a friend, he understood. So Rache and I got drunk, cried with our parents (yes, I cried for the 1st time in about 10 years), and went to sleep hoping we'd wake up and this would be a bad dream. Unfortunately, it wasn't.