July 02, 2004
the irr, or "that was in my contract?"
so i've been reading some newsites and blogs talking about the individual ready reserve. for those of you that don't know how this works i am going to share a story with you.
i joined the army in the early spring of 1993. like most young folks i knew then, i needed college money in a bad way. so i joined for four years. when i got to my unit i learned something that really pissed me off. you actually are obligated to 8 years of service even if you only sign up for two years, which is the minimum enlistment. i learned this while talking to a friend one day. he had joined up in the 80's, served his time, and was out when desert storm started. he got called back. back from his life, his wife, everything.
you see, they kinda gloss over that when you sign up. i have dug through my records and cannot find anything that stated this when i signed up. i am sure it was part of the endless paperwork i signed those first few days, but i guess it is lost to time. not that they gave me time to read anything. it was an assembly line: sign here and here, don't take time to read it, just keep signing. regardless, i was pissed to learn this after the fact. i am serious. no one ever told me or any of my friends that we were obligated to the military for eight years. we had to find out from others in our units. you would think this would be important enough to mention at the beginning. but they just want you in, cause then they have you, and well then, what the fuck can you do.
thank the goddess my eight years ended in 2001. i got my dd214 and now they can go fuck themselves.
but it still disturbs me that this happens. i would bet money that the same thing happened to those folks that are being called back. when you are on irr status, you are supposed to keep in shape and keep some uniforms at the ready. yeah right. most people i know got out, sold all their military shit to the surplus story and got fat. we served our time. i think this is bullshit.
i feel for my brothers and sisters who are being called back. i could not leave my wife and the life we have built to go fight for oil profits. some folks got out and joined the reserves. fine, they commited themselves. the rest are just getting fucked. and since now that enlistment is down, more will get fucked by this.