WAR: US Army Plans to Activate Reserve Troops

It appears that 6000 members of the Army's Individual Ready Reserves will be called up on an involuntary basis to help in Afghanistan & Iraq. The last time the IRR was called up was during the frist Gulf War in 90-91.
The troops are retired or discharged members of the Army who are not currently a part of the National Guard.



An official announcement is expected soon.

It is not surprising as the US forces are spread quite thin and they have already extended numerous troops past their enlistment dates.

Related ATSNN/TA Stories:
US May Increase Troops in Iraq

Related News Stories:
NYPost.com
CNN

[edit on 29-6-2004 by Banshee]

Discharged, retired vets getting Army's call

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Army is preparing to notify about 5,600 retired and discharged soldiers who are not members of the National Guard or Reserve that they will be involuntarily recalled to active duty for possible service in Iraq or Afghanistan, Army officials said Tuesday.

www.modbee.com...

another related article to the one posted earlier

USA Today link
www.usatoday.com...

This begs the question...What about current weapons training and
health/fitness? Any thoughts?
Sanc'.

My husband is a retired Marine so I guess I don't have to worry about that, but like my husband said and many of his fellow retired Marines, they have not problem defending America if America ever gets invaded but he already pay his country with 22 years of service and he is not going anywhere out of US to fight for not president's results of poor decisions..

Originally posted by sanctum
This begs the question...What about current weapons training and
health/fitness? Any thoughts?
Sanc'.

Normally the called up units go to refresher training sometimes up to 6 months as I recall. I don't believe that anyone who has not been actively training would just be shuffled into a plane and shipped over.

Now saying that we need to keep an eye out to see if our military starts a refresher training facility in say, Kuwait, which would mean they would have more control over the recallees.

Most of these troops are in highly specialized fields...not ground pounders, so health and combat skills aren't necessarily needed to be tip top... Most already do the same kinds of work in the private sector, so re-training really isn't necessary... It would suck to pay your dues and then have to go back to the warfields though....

Let's just hope that such actions reflect in far less military votes for Dubya, shall we???