After reading this diary, it seems that there is more trouble for those in the National Guard and Reserves as the Pentagon gets ready to scrap certain deployment rules and force more Guard and Reservist back to Iraq.
Strapped for soldiers, the U.S. Army wants new authority to send National Guard and Reserve soldiers back to Iraq for repeat deployments, even those who have already served the maximum time allowed by the Pentagon.
A national commission looking at National Guard and Reserve issues will decide in March whether to endorse the Army's plan, a change that could affect the 522,000 citizen-soldiers in the Army National Guard and Reserve, and more broadly the 800,000 reservists serving in all the military services.
Welcome to the "Surge".
Having personally seen some of my co-workers pulled out of their daily lives to go fight this stupid war, I can only imagine the fear that many of them are now facing after surviving their last tour. No longer will the have the protection of the "I've done my turn and then some".
The policy in question limits reservists to 24 months cumulative mobilization on active duty, and they may not be involuntarily deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan more than once. If a reserve soldier is to serve more than that, they must volunteer. The Pentagon's desire is to be even more strict, with active duty service limited to one year out of every six -- that is, a year deployed followed by five years at home, unless a soldier volunteers for additional time. They are not expected to deploy beyond those limits, in deference to their status as citizen-soldiers.
Many active-duty soldiers are deploying every other year, spending less than a year at home with their families in between combat rotations.
The policy change is supported by the U.S. military, in particular by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker who told the commission two weeks ago that if the policy was not changed the U.S. Army will break under the strain of the Iraq war.
More than 650,000 soldiers have served in the Iraq war since it began, with 185,000 of them from the National Guard. At one point in 2004, more than 60 percent of the soldiers in Iraq were Guard soldiers.
We have all seen and have made the argument of how the pro-war crowd, who also claims to be pro-family, are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites, but this is getting more and more aggravating by the minute. I can scream "Why don't you either put up or shut up and you volunteer for this damn war!" But as we already know, it is easier to be a chicken shit than it is to be someone that actually backs up their words with action.
So as we mourn the lost of Army Reservist James E. Dean, please realize that his sad story will not be the last one we hear.