The Fear Draft | Main | An Object Lesson in Recruiter Deceit
May 19, 2004
We Few, We Proud, We 6,500 Very Unlucky People
Looks like the IRR callup has been underway for a while, but is about to pick up the tempo:
The U.S. Army is scraping up soldiers for duty in Iraq wherever it can find them, and that includes places and people long considered off-limits.
The Army on Tuesday confirmed that it pulled the files of about 17,000 people in the Individual Ready Reserve, the nation's pool of former soldiers. The Army has been screening them for critically needed specialists and has called about 100 of them since January.
Under the current authorization from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the Army could call as many as 6,500 back on active duty involuntarily.