Call to War Turns Guardsmen on a Dime
Despite Policy, Short Notice, Long Deployments Persist for Citizen-Soldiers
Chief Warrant Officer 5 Ray Johnson, 58, of La Plata, was in a holding pattern for four months before having to report. "The uncertainty was the hardest thing," he said.
(Courtesy Of Ray Johnson - Courtesy Of Ray Johnson)
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Sunday, August 19, 2007
The house was in complete disarray, with dirty dishes in the sink, clothes on the floor and the trash bin overflowing. Even the TV was left on.
Stephanie Pyle felt awful that she had left such a mess for her vacationing housemate to clean up, but there wasn't much she could do. The Army had told her that she was deploying for war.
Pyle, a sergeant in the Virginia Army National Guard, had good reason to be taken by surprise when she got word in June. Just two weeks earlier, she had been told that she was not mobilizing with her unit. Then the situation changed, and Pyle, 40, of Richmond, was given a week to report for duty.
In that short, frantic week, she had to get her finances in order, take leave from her police job, drop college classes and say goodbye. There was not enough time to straighten up the house before she left. "It was crazy," she said. "It was like a bomb went off."
As the war in Iraq stretches into its fifth year, the military continues to rely heavily on the Army National Guard and Reserve, whose soldiers have been called up again and again in numbers not seen since World War II.
Despite attempts by military leaders to ease the burden and make deployments more predictable, many of these "citizen-soldiers" continue to be mobilized on very short notice, leaving behind families and civilian jobs.
The Pentagon, aware of the strain the war has placed on the Guard, has taken steps to alleviate the burden. It is trying to limit mobilizations to a year, although so far it hasn't always been able to do that. Some reserve units had been mobilized for 18 months or more.
And military leaders have vowed to make the deployments more predictable: one year on active duty for every five in reserve.
"That's very important for Guard and Reserve soldiers who not only have to deal with family but civilian employers as well, who want to know when you're going and when you're coming back," said John Goheen, a spokesman for the National Guard Association of the United States.
The goal, said Maj. Thomas McCuin, an Army spokesman, is to create a clear rotation schedule so soldiers "could look at a calendar and say, 'This is when my unit is going to go.' "
The war in Iraq is the first major conflict since the draft ended in 1973. And unlike Vietnam, where the reserves were for the most part left at home, citizen-soldiers today are deploying to war again and again, at one time making up more than 50 percent of the Army's combat force in Iraq. Sometimes, units have to scramble at the last minute to fill the ranks.
"There is a lot of back and forth, plugging the right people into the right spots on the battle roster," McCuin said. "Sometimes it doesn't seem fair, and you wished it worked out differently."
