My daughter, who was discharged from the Army after completing her term of service a year ago, has been notified that she is being re-activated from the Inividual Ready Reserve. This means that even though she was honorably discharged, she had a commitment for re-activation for a total of six years from the date she first enlisted. The Army, in essence, has called her back in.
I'm hardly surprised. The Army is even reaching for people who have been out for ten years and completed their IRR comittment years ago. (Many of them are fighting the callup in court.) But my daughter is within her period subject to callup and almost certainly will have to go.
But now it starts to hit pretty damn close to home. As a retired officer, I theoretically have an IRR comittment (if memory serves me right) until age 60. I'm only 51. Am I next?
Rhetorical questions I am pondering:
- Is my number coming up?
- I swore an oath when I was commissioned to obey the orders, etc. Even though I am retired, I have not been released from that oath.
- I take oaths rather more seriously now than I did even two years ago.
- I've also made pretty plain my opinion of the Bush administration and its military policies.
- So, keemosabe, what you do if and when?