Posted on 08/08/2003 6:19:20 PM PDT by demlosers
Army Capt. Richard Hinman says he's a "draftee" serving in a volunteer army.
Think about it, says Hinman. The West Point graduate, who left the military in 1999, didn't want to go to Iraq and Kuwait. But he got his orders on Feb. 8 and was sent overseas in May.
"I wanted to get out of this kicking-in-doors-with-guns kind of thing," said Hinman, who was looking forward to more time with his two children but is now serving at Camp Doha, Kuwait. "It was a real surprise."
And a shock, Hinman said in a telephone interview from Kuwait, because he was so unprepared. Even his old uniforms had been thrown away.
Hinman is an Individual Ready Reservist, one of about 300,000 former service members available for active duty in a time of crisis, according to the Pentagon. Each year, as thousands of military personnel finish their terms of active duty, they are placed on IRR status for a period that varies according to agreements they signed when they joined the service.
In some cases, a person on IRR status can be called up as many as 10 years after departure from the armed forces, the Pentagon says.
Although many people on IRR are never called back, the Department of Defense is relying on them more heavily as operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere stretch the military's manpower. And Hinman, who was enjoying civilian life, is returning to a life he had hoped to leave behind.
His wife, Josephine, who is living with her mother in Englewood Cliffs, had hoped so, too.
She recalled the "horror" she felt when her husband approached, carrying a FedEx envelope, with the letter from the Army inside. She was on a treadmill, in a gym at the family's Falls Church, Va., apartment complex, while their 11-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter were playing with friends.
"There was no explanation. He just knew he had to report," his wife said. "I said, 'What do you mean you got called back up?' There were no warnings that he may be one of the people tasked to go."
Military officials were unable to say how many IRRs have been activated, why Hinman was selected, or how long his IRR status will last. But they said they were surprised to hear that Hinman didn't appear to know the terms of his own reserve obligations.
"For a West Point grad to say he didn't understand his commitment is highly unusual," said Lt. Col. Dan Stoneking, a Pentagon spokesman.
Unlike the more widely known and larger group of Selected Reservists - who train one weekend a month and two weeks each year and get paid for it - IRRs have almost no contact with the military. It's sort of an on-call list for inactive service men and women, and their call-up is typically seen as a last resort during hostilities.
While Selected Reservists - and also most members of the National Guard - train routinely, many do not have the same breadth of experience as IRRs, who are all veterans of active duty. Many IRRs have specialized skills.
And in this war, the Pentagon says, every reservist in Iraq has played an important role in the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime and maintaining the dangerous peacekeeping operations there.
The 36-year-old Hinman, who graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1988, has served three months in Iraq and Kuwait. He said his current job is briefing military officials, orally and in writing, on the progress of strategic operations.
His wife says her husband is a good writer, but much to her dissatisfaction, the Pentagon won't further explain why he was selected over so many thousands of others who were training regularly.
And she's confused as she watches others return to the States while he expects to stay overseas until February 2004.
She becomes anxious as she watches television reports of soldiers dying nearly every day, even though he is now far from the action and not involved in the door-kicking he spoke of. She did note that in June he was in Baghdad.
"At what point are you free?" she asked. "When he committed to West Point at 17, did he know he could be called back the rest of his life?"
IRR terms do expire, but Lt. Col. Bob Stone, an Army Reserve spokesman, said that because the nation has been in a state of emergency since the Sept. 11 attacks, the military must maintain its access to experienced veterans during crises.
That holds true in Iraq, where tensions remain high and it is time for some soldiers to return home. If someone doesn't understand that, Stone says, "they're probably not paying close enough attention."
The deployment of IRRs and the Inactive National Guard in war is nothing new, Stone said. Since the Selective Service System was eliminated 30 years ago, that "manpower pool" has become an important resource in a volunteer military, he said. In virtually every conflict since the Vietnam War, they have been called to duty, he said.
In Iraq, Stone said, the Marines even deployed some IRRs to serve in infantry units.
It is difficult to measure the enthusiasm or frustration level of the average IRR overseas.
Surely there are members of the IRR who welcome the opportunity to serve again. Grateful for years of military pay and benefits and training, they are motivated by a loyalty to their former comrades and a sense of duty.
The Pentagon could not provide a list of those who have been called up.
Hinman put The Record in contact with Maj. Joseph Way, who was also an IRR activated in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Way said in a telephone interview from Louisiana that he was upset to find himself thousands of miles from home until he was permitted to return to be with his terminally ill wife.
"I was about to go freaking bananas," Way said about his time in the Middle East.
Hinman said he served in Panama in 1989, a year after graduating from West Point, leaving his wife alone for 13 months. Since then, she said, she has raised their two children largely on her own, since he has served months at a time in places such as Peru and the Persian Gulf. She was glad in 1999, when he decided to leave the Army and join the Secret Service. But in that job, there was more travel, and more time away from home.
"Even in the Secret Service, he did a five-month school away from us," his wife said. "In the presidential campaign, he went to the Democratic National Convention, he went to the Olympics, and he went with [vice presidential candidate Joseph] Lieberman to a dinner. It was like literally every weekend he was gone."
Last year, Hinman took a job with the U.S. Foreign Service, which staffs embassies and consulates around the world, and the family lived in Virginia. They were planning to move to India this month, and the children were enrolled in international schools for the coming academic year, she said.
They looked forward to India because the job would have allowed for the most family time they've ever had. Now that plan, like the rest of them, has been scrapped.
"Our family are survivors, and we'll manage without him," Hinman's wife said. "But it's another year of not seeing his children. You only have 18 years of raising your children, and another year has gone by."
E-mail: davist@northjersey.com
Then you get this schmoe here, a West Point grad no less, who acts astonished when he gets called up and actually calls himself a "draftee." Pardon me while I barf.
Gotta read and understand that fine print Richie.
This is B.S.. This guy started at West Point in 1984, graduated in 1988 (all expenses paid by the USA, and an experience that can't be purchased), and he left active duty in 1999. At that point, his original obligation (used to be about six years, but I heard it was increased to 8 yrs; uncertain) should have been over. He was "regular Army) free to resign his commission, but instead chose to accept a transfer to the IRR. Why? He CHOSE to remain in the reserves, so he could accumulate 50-60 points a year through individual correspondence courses, and pick up his (pro-rated) 20 year retirement (1988-2008, with retirement pay based on time served since 1984; sweet deal). He could have walked away, but instead owes his country his service at time of war. Sorry.. but, life sucks sometimes.
I'm IRR. I could be activated, and in fact, will voluntarily re-affiliate as an O5 (Navy Commander) this year. I went IRR because I got to the point where (a) there were no more Select Reserve (SELRES, i.e. weekend warrior) jobs (i.e. "billets") for my senior grade, (b)because I was burned out, and (c) because I wanted to raise my kids. The Naval Reserve was never "1 weekend a month" in the jobs I held. In the months before Saddam invaded Kuwait, I was spending 2-3 weekends per month, plus about a half dozen evenings or 2-hour lunches at work per month keeping up with the active duty sailors that reported to me.
I left to coach Little League, to take my kids camping, and to be a "Dad" before they got too old. I forfeited any hope of future promotion (was lucky to be on a fast track), and never looked back. Now the kids are almost out of High School, 59 yrs old is heading my way far too fast, and I'm almost out of time to get 20 "good" years for a retirement, so I'm going back to work for the Naval Reserve.
I might get activated tomorrow. That's my choice. I didn't go to the Naval Academy. I didn't go through ROTC. I paid for my college. When my peers were out having fun on liberty on my first deployment, I was socking away every penny to pay off the college loans. I never complained. It was my choice to serve my country.
It was, and has been, and is, my privilege to serve my country, and an honor to do so as a Commissioned Naval Officer. It was my choice, and unlike these privileged, Congressionally appointed West Point whiners, I have no regrets. I won't volunteer to run off to Iraq now, because I love my wife and kids too much to do that. But I'll kiss 'em goodbye and go if I'm called, and with no regrets, because I honor my commitments.
With NO regrets .. SFS
Guess what you west point puke they call me , I pack my bags and gom saying when do you need me.
Officers some of them are a pain in the butt.
I never met a separating officer who failed to understand why the Expiration Date on his Military ID contained the word "Indefinite" instead of an actual date. And given that an officer's duties include educating his men about almost every aspect of military service, I find it hard to imagine that any US Army captain would not fully understand the service obligations which accompany the full range of enlistments, warrants and commissions. I don't buy his claim that he didn't understand what he was getting into.
I don't blame Captain Hinman for being disappointed that he was called back after all these years, or for being anxious to go home to his family. But he got a damned fine college education at taxpayer expense, and was then blessed with the special trust and confidence to lead other young Americans who volunteered for duty. And nobody forced him into it, either -- he asked for that privilege. If Mr. Hinman can no longer conduct himself as an officer, perhaps he should be allowed to serve the remainder of his active duty as a private soldier.
Semper Fidelis...
My thoughts exactly.
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