This grabbing people out of the IRR or long in the tooth from the officer corps (long retired or absent from service) is interesting. I figure it will slow down if the operational tempo slows. If I may prattle on a bit.

In 1983 I joined the US National Guard. I was a junior in high school, and I did basic training between my junior and senior year. Upon return to my unit at the urging of several members of my unit I applied to go active duty. Not long after that I was visited at home (interesting in itself as I lived on a boat with my parents) by a Marine recruiter who said I would be going active duty with the Marines. Some rule, unknown to anybody I've ever met, said they could grab me out of the National Guard since I wanted to go active duty and intra-service transfer me to the Marines. The summer after my senior year of high school I went to boot camp at MCRD San Diego. In 1986 I was processed out of the service with a Medical Discharge. Seems breaking your back in multiple places in the 1980s was reason to out process me.

Flash forward to a little disturbance in the Middle East called Desert Storm. I was visited by a nice Marine Corps captain, about three months before actual hostilities broke out, at home who noticed I was a "disabled" veteran who was a serving law enforcement officer. He said that I still owed the marine corps the balance of my time and since I was "healthy" there would be no barrier to me entering service at my original rank or even maybe picking up a stripe. I told him I would think about it, he never returned, in the back of my mind I thought it was a joke.

Zoom forward a decade plus some to 2003. During Christmas I received an email from the United States Navy Reserve Officer, Recruiting Office, Indianapolis Indiana. The letter had all my dates of service, information only retrievable from my SRB, and information about my education. It said that I had the option of returning to active duty as a corporal, or accepting their tendered officer of a junior reserve officer position to serve out the remainder of my contract. In what I figured was an elaborate joke I ignored it. I got another letter scheduling me for a meeting in Indianapolis (why not Chicago?) and I ignored that one too.

As a card carrying member of the UFS (ugly, fat, slow) Club I can't imagine I would be of interest to the military. If not an elaborate joke. I figure my name was on a list, if so I was a contact with no response, and therefore helped some poor recruiter make numbers. There seems to be a lot of guys getting snatched out of the woodwork unsuspecting, but at the same time I don't figure they are scraping the bottom of the barrel yet. I'm still walking around.

It really sucks to see families hurt by the response to low man-power. I figured if I ever was actually called back, my family would have to adapt, my wife would have to learn how to be a military spouse (something she's never done), and it would suck. But dang, if family is remote, that is a choice. If you've got kids and a commitment that is a choice. Having kids while on active duty is a choice, and having plans if deployed for those kids is a responsibility. If subject to recall than I guess having a contingency plan no matter the infinitesimal likelihood is just a good idea. From what I remember in my Scotch soaked and befuddled brain the military expects you to adapt to their needs not the other way around. It is like a rule or something.