1,800 Individual Ready Reserve Marines may get yearlong deployment

[lebkuchen]

The Marine Corps plans to notify 1,800 Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve this month that they could be mobilized for one year, to include an expected seven-month deployment to Iraq, said Maj. Steven O’Connor, Reserve liaison officer at Headquarters Marine Corps Public Affairs.

Troops in the IRR have left active duty but still have time on their obligation to serve. Unlike other reservists, they do not drill.

Of the Marines notified, about 1,200 are expected to get orders to join the I Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, O’Connor said Monday.

That breaks down to 1,067 sergeants and 133 captains, said Lt. Col. Jeff Riehl, of Manpower and Reserve Affairs.

...

In August, the Corps announced that it planned to mobilize up to 2,500 Marines in the IRR to stem a shortfall of 1,200 Marines. The Corps had been relying on volunteers from the IRR, but fewer Marines in the IRR had volunteered to be mobilized.

Since then, 150 Marines in the IRR have been notified they could deploy, of which 69 have received orders to go to Iraq, O’Connor said.

http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=44629

The DoD keeps saying it is making recruitment quotas in all branches, so why the need for IRR?

[Monkeyman]

1. Getting ready for something bigger

[The Straight Story]

2. The breakdown of military occupational specialties for the 1,200 IRR members is:

-- 361 Aviation Maintenance
-- 225 Logistics and Support
-- 223 Infantry, Tanks and Artillery
-- 178 Motor Transport
-- 97 Communications
-- 95 Intelligence
-- 21 Military Police

[IChing]

3. The Highest amount is in aviation and logistics

Now, you would think that would already be handled by the air force
except in a typical marine amphibious assault unit.

Just 21 in military police, with Bagdad how it is now.
Interesting numbers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. The army maintains its own chpppers too

those are Aviattion MOS

And each branch has logistics personnel

It tells me how broken the marines are

[genie_weenie]

5. Oh, Intel!

"Bring em on!"

I await my letter...

[lebkuchen]

8. What do you make of the MOS's?

21 more MPs aren't going to be all that effective. The aviation maintenance...for the helos?

[Little Wing]

18. Yet, they'll probably all end up driving trucks

[The Straight Story]

4. About the recruitment quotas:

They are trying to bring people back in who are already trained in certain fields (takes less time than training newbies).

New recruits are probably just front line fodder....damn f'ing shame.

[lebkuchen]

9. Those new recruits are our country's future, going up in flames

cut to bits or otherwise incapacitated by schrapnel.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. They have not made tehir quotas in years

take it from me, or not.. but off the record a recuriter mentioned this to us one day, and how they are fibbing the numbers

[lebkuchen]

10. do you know by how much, and which branches

that the numbers are being fudged?

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Oh ten here, ten there by the particular recruiting

station and that is the Navy.

But if you multiply this by all stations...

You get a pretty good idea, number fudging has been an ongoing problem...

And every so often we get almost an honest number... but rarely

Here is how they do it

We need 100 sailors from this station this month

Teh 31st arrives, they only got 90

Well we met our quota of 90 sailors... that is how the game is being played

[lebkuchen]

13. Congress needs to wrestle control of those numbers from Gates

and give their reporting to the media back to the individual branches.

[Marrah_G]

12. It's all branches

This just happens to be a large bunch from one branch. From what I've been told the IRR are retired officers who specialize in a particular area the military is short on. They can be compelled to return to service. My brother (retired navy commander) has been re-actived for a year, involuntarily.

[lebkuchen]

14. Gates said he would rethink stop-loss.

Once that is lifted, there will be mass exodus. I know lots that have either already separated from the army or are about to. These are folks that had planned to make the army a career. Not anymore.

[Marrah_G]

16. I think IRR is different from stop loss

From what i've been told officers in the IRR can be called back anytime their expertise is needed and the only way to get out of it is to resign the commission and forfit all pensions and benefits.

[lebkuchen]

17. Yes, it is different

[TahitiNut]

15. Hoo-rah.

:puke: