My son is an 11B with two tours to Iraq under his belt and about 5 years of active service. He just re-enlisted for 2 years. In talking about his plans he mentioned that he might extend out to 8 full years to avoid getting yanked out of college by the Army.

I asked what he meant, and he told me his unit (2/27th Infantry, 25th ID)was full of guys who had done their time, ETS'd and were going to college on the GI Bill when they got recalled to active duty due to their IRR obligation. Kids are becoming fatalistic that there is no sense in getting out as the Army will just pull you back in again.

I haven't seen anything in the news on this (like there has been on the whole Stop-loss issue), but it sounds like we may be relying far too heavily on the legal strings we have on these vets and dragging them back in with what is essentially a draft, instead of doing the hard work to recruit non-vets to serve.

What say you, SWJ community? How prevalent is this?