Call to War Turns Guardsmen on a Dime

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Chief Warrant Officer 5 Ray Johnson, 58, of La Plata, was in a holding pattern for four months before having to report. "The uncertainty was the hardest thing," he said.


Call to War Turns Guardsmen on a Dime
By Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 19, 2007; Page C01


The house was in complete disarray, with dirty dishes in the sink, clothes on the floor and the trash bin overflowing. Even the TV was left on.

Stephanie Pyle felt awful that she had left such a mess for her vacationing housemate to clean up, but there wasn't much she could do. The Army had told her that she was deploying for war.

Pyle, a sergeant in the Virginia Army National Guard, had good reason to be taken by surprise when she got word in June. Just two weeks earlier, she had been told that she was not mobilizing with her unit. Then the situation changed, and Pyle, 40, of Richmond, was given a week to report for duty.

In that short, frantic week, she had to get her finances in order, take leave from her police job, drop college classes and say goodbye. There was not enough time to straighten up the house before she left. "It was crazy," she said. "It was like a bomb went off."

As the war in Iraq stretches into its fifth year, the military continues to rely heavily on the Army National Guard and Reserve, whose soldiers have been called up again and again in numbers not seen since World War II.

Despite attempts by military leaders to ease the burden and make deployments more predictable, many of these "citizen-soldiers" continue to be mobilized on very short notice, leaving behind families and civilian jobs.


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