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Irs To Hunt Down Reservists. IRR being called back into service.

#1 User is offline   jessefan 

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Posted 18 May 2004 - 08:15 AM

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nati..._iraqdig18.html
QUOTE

Those in the IRR are people who have completed their active-duty tours but are subject to involuntary recall for a certain number of years. For example, a soldier who serves four years on active duty remains in the IRR for another four years. The whereabouts of about 50,000 such veterans are unknown.


Signing up for four years is not signing up for just four years. I'll bet a lot of young people did not take the IRR recall prospect seriously. From what I am reading, retention and recruitment have still so far not been impacted by Iraq. But I wonder what affect this will have on recruitment. Can any service members tell us how big a deal this is? It looks to me like it is getting closer to becoming a "for the duration" type of committment.

Pentagon wants IRS help in tracking down reservists

FORT WORTH, Texas — The Defense Department, strapped for troops for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, has proposed to Congress that it tap the Internal Revenue Service to locate out-of-touch reservists.

The unusual measure, which the Pentagon said has been examined by lawyers, would allow the IRS to pass on addresses for tens of thousands of former military members, members of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), who still face recall to active duty.

Congress and President Bush would have to approve the proposal, which would involve amending the tax code.

Ari Schwartz, an associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, said granting access to any IRS data would open the door to more requests from other arms of the government.

The IRR is distinctly different than the drilling reserves or National Guard.

Those in the IRR are people who have completed their active-duty tours but are subject to involuntary recall for a certain number of years. For example, a soldier who serves four years on active duty remains in the IRR for another four years. The whereabouts of about 50,000 such veterans are unknown.

The Defense Department has called on members of the IRR before. About 7,000 people have been recalled since Sept. 11, 2001. Approximately 30,000 were recalled in 1990 and 1991 during the buildup for the Persian Gulf War.
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#2 User is offline   jessefan 

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Posted 19 May 2004 - 07:24 PM

More on this issue.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctime.../8701869.htm?1c

Army could recall 6,500 ex-soldiers to duty in Iraq

By Joseph L. Galloway

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS


WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army is finding soldiers for duty in Iraq wherever it can find them, and that includes places and people long considered off-limits.

The Army confirmed on Tuesday that it pulled the files of some 17,000 people in the Individual Ready Reserve, the nation's pool of former soldiers. It has been screening them for needed specialists and has called about 100 of them since January.

Under authorization from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Army could call as many as 6,500 back on active duty involuntarily.

"Yes we are screening them and, yes, we are calling some of them up," an Army spokesman, Col. Joseph Curtin, told Knight Ridder.

"We need certain specialties, including civil affairs, military police, some advanced medical specialists, such as orthopedic surgeons, psychological operations, military intelligence interrogators."

The Army has been forced to look to the IRR pool and elsewhere for soldiers because it's been stretched so thin by a recent decision to maintain troop levels in Iraq at 135,000 to 138,000 at least through 2005.

It is also considering a plan to close its premier training center at Fort Irwin in California so the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the much-vaunted Opposition Force against which the Army's tank divisions hone their combat skills, would be available for combat in Iraq.

No decision has been made on that plan.

In addition, the Defense Department this week announced that one of the Army's two mechanized infantry brigades in South Korea -- a total of some 3,600 soldiers -- would be rotating to Iraq this summer to pull 12-month combat tours, an unprecedented move.

The IRR pool is composed of people who completed their active-duty tours but are subject to involuntary recall for a period of years after leaving.

A soldier who has served a four-year enlistment in the Army, for example, remains in the IRR for an additional four years. During that time he or she receives no pay and doesn't drill with a Reserve or National Guard unit.

Curtin said the fact that 17,000 files were being screened "is not a reflection of how many will be called back." He said the Army has 118,732 people on IRR rolls.

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