Biden calling up military reservists

[Angel Eyes]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/07/13/ordering-the-selected-reserve-and-certain-members-of-the-individual-ready-reserve-of-the-armed-forces-to-active-duty/

I hereby authorize the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the Coast Guard when it is not operating as a service in the Navy, under their respective jurisdictions, to order to active duty any units, and any individual members not assigned to a unit organized to serve as a unit of the Selected Reserve, or any member in the Individual Ready Reserve mobilization category and designated as essential under regulations prescribed by the Secretary concerned, not to exceed 3,000 total members at any one time, of whom not more than 450 may be members of the Individual Ready Reserve, as they deem necessary, and to terminate the service of those units and members ordered to active duty.

Not a huge number of personnel.

Scuttlebutt so far is falling into two categories:

1) Military recruitment and retention are so poor that calling up reservists has become necessary.

2) U.S./NATO need logistical support for the Abrams and Bradleys going to Ukraine.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but calling up the IRR was last done for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

[dogmush]

This is 3000 Reservists specifically for Operation Atlantic Resolve. There's "normally " 15 to 20 thousand reservists deployed doing various things any given year, but this is authorizing more specifically for our Ukraine response.

I'd be a little surprised if Reservists were being deployed for Brad/Abrams logistics, as the Reserve doesn't have any Cav units in it, and no units that run those vehicles.  Combat vehicles are a Active Duty/National Guard thing.

On the IRR, we pull a few lucky individuals every year.  I was with one on my last CENTCOM trip back in 2020.

[dogmush]

Interestingly I see this was dated 13 July.

We (the Reserves) have been spinning up units for Europe deployments since early April.  Like: Deployment orders cut, ships and planes ordered, equipment in rebuild so it's ready, the whole shebang.

I wonder if they just changed the names operation for those units, or if this is a different set of units for Atlantic Resolve.  I need to go hit my email and see if we got another list of Warning Orders.


Just to help out the conspiracy theories,  the Reserves are also deploying a couple thousand troops to USINDOPACOM in FY24.

[HankB]

Hmm . . . a cousin (some years older than me) was drafted during the tail end of the Vietnam war. He went in, served honorably, and was LUCKY to be stationed in W. Germany.  As he told me later, just a few days before his discharge he was presented with paperwork to sign up with the Reserves. He was told he HAD to sign up as part of his "obligation."

He flatly refused. They gave him a lot of grief over it, but he dug in his heels and wouldn't sign - two years active duty was enough for him. A lot of other draftees he knew whose enlistments were up refused, too, though some signed up. Apparently a lot weren't even told/asked to sign Reserve papers, so whatever "policy" was being applied wasn't being applied uniformly across the board.

He got his Honorable Discharge as scheduled, and it came with a tongue lashing from some officer. No Reserve sign up.

This was right around the time both the Vietnam war and the draft ended, so I guess there was a lot of stuff going on with enlistments and recruiting that didn't make the papers.

[HeroHog]

1n 76 I signed up on the 3x6 program where I was told I would serve 3 years active service, 1 year Active Reserves and the remaining 2 years in the Inactive Reserves. I was disabled in my 3 year of Active duty and released from the service near the end of my 4th year while in the Active Reserves. Honourable Discharge.

[JTHunter]

Fortunately, in the last year of the draft, I was still too young.  And my birth date was in the top 1/3 that year.  After I got out of HS, I considered the Navy as I was interested in nuclear subs and the Sealab program.  Took the AFEEs and, because of some "discomfort" in my lower back, they classed me as a "1H" (holding).
Less than a month later, two discs out of my lower back. Automatic 4F.

[sumpnz]

My dad volunteered rather than be drafted in ‘68.  Got lucky, spent all 3 years in Maryland.  He didn’t have to do any reserve service AFAIK.

[RoadKingLarry]

Dad went in the Air Force right out of high school in '55. Served 20 years and never had even a threat of going to Viet Nam.

[Ben]

My dad got drafted into the Navy at 17. He spent six months on an island, then when the war ended, a couple of months in a British POW camp getting beat downs from the guards. He didn't have to worry about reserve service. 

[HankB]

Fortunately, in the last year of the draft, I was still too young . . .

Same here - I was not yet 17 when the draft ended. Nixon was still POTUS and whatever he did afterwards, I'll forgive him a lot for taking possible conscription and Vietnam out of my future. Draft registration was still a requirement, so I dutifully went and registered when I turned 18. I got the same "1H" administrative classification everyone got.

A good friend of mine - an MD - decided to join the Reserves when he was around 50. (Medical Corps.) He went in as a Major and just retired - aged out - as a full Colonel. He was called to active duty and deployed OUS at least twice - once to Iraq, once to Central America. He also got called to active duty for some sort of COVID program stateside a couple of years ago.