Reserve will deploy units, not volunteers

By Melissa Vogt - Times Staff
Posted : Friday Jan 12, 2007 0:39:55 EST

Reserve troops will now be called up as units to help meet war-zone demands, increasing the likelihood that soldiers will be deployed involuntarily, some of them on repeat tours that will be contrary to Defense Department goals for dwell time between deployments.

That system will replace the practice of filling deploying units with volunteers and was among several significant changes included in a Defense Department announcement Thursday about the way it will mobilizereservists.DoD said it will shorten maximum mobilizations to 12 months instead of 18. DoD also announced its intention to establish a program to compensate reservists remobilized sooner than policy guidelines permit or whose deployments are involuntarily extended.

Current policy limits National Guard members to 24 cumulative months of mobilization for one conflict. However, troops who served one-year tours typically were mobilized about 18 months, which included training time and a demobilization period. A reservist who had been mobilized for 18 months could only be tapped for another six months, effectively ruling him out for another war tour. After more than five years of combat tours that started with the war in Afghanistan, the Guard has to rely on volunteers willing to exceed the limit in order to fully man deploying units. However, that practice has degraded unit cohesion and hindered planning for training and deployments.

Defense officials still aim to mobilize reservists just one year out of every five, but admitted in the announcement that might not be possible given the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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