National Guard and Reserve in crisis.In early October, an Army National Guard unit in Sacramento "that usually processes paperwork for other soldiers going overseas was called up to serve for more than a year in Iraq," reported the San Francisco Examiner The San Francisco Examiner is a U.S. daily newspaper. It has been published continuously in San Francisco, California, since the late 19th Century. History 19th century The beginning of the Examiner is a topic of some controversy. . "The soldiers were told how to apply for life insurance and were told how much their children and spouses would receive if they were killed in action." At about the same time, 800 members of the 98th Army Reserve Division in Rochester, New York This article is about the city of Rochester in Monroe County. For the town in Ulster County, see Rochester, Ulster County, New York. Rochester, once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City or , learned that they were assigned to a year-long tour in Iraq beginning in November. The unit, which normally trains reserve and active-duty soldiers here in the U.S., "is a non-combat unit that doesn't even have its own weapons or vehicles," reported Rochester's CBS (Cell Broadcast Service) See cell broadcast. affiliate KWTX. Lt. Gen. James Helmly, chief of the U.S. Army Reserve remarked: "This is a hard war and we, frankly, inside the Army Reserve have been not properly prepared for it." The Iraq war Iraq War: see under Persian Gulf Wars. Iraq War or Second Persian Gulf War Brief conflict in 2003 between Iraq and a combined force of troops largely from the U.S. and Great Britain; and a subsequent U.S. has also ravaged rav·age v. rav·aged, rav·ag·ing, rav·ages v.tr. 1. To bring heavy destruction on; devastate: A tornado ravaged the town. 2. the Army Reserve's Individual Ready Reserve (IRR IRR In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Iranian Rial. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. ), a pool of retired soldiers who can be mobilized in the event of a national emergency. "About 30 percent of the 3,664 Individual Ready Reserve soldiers who have been called to active duty failed to report for mobilization," reported the September 27 Army Times. "Mainly it's family situations, such as someone's a sole parent or is taking care of someone in the family with a severe medical condition, or even they themselves have a serious illness," explained Lt. Col. Burt Masters, a spokesman for the Army Human Resources The fancy word for "people." The human resources department within an organization, years ago known as the "personnel department," manages the administrative aspects of the employees. Command. Last June the Pentagon announced that up to 5,600 IRR soldiers would be called into service, with future call-ups a distinct possibility. As an increasing number of Guard and Reserve units are sent to Iraq, state governments are left with critical shortfalls to deal with natural disasters--such as the recent bout of hurricanes--or, heaven forbid, future terrorist attacks on our soil. Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura (a Special Forces veteran) describes the Bush administration's increasing reliance on Guard and Reserve troops in Iraq as "a flagrant misuse." "Whose security are we defending most--Iraq's, or ours?" asked Ventura at a recent conference. "The first rule in the military is you protect your homeland first before you venture into enemy territory.... It's called the 'National Guard' so its job should be to guard the nation here at home." |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion