The Military Gets Punished for Serving

Many members of the military and their families love the service and want to have a career in it. But for those who don’t, mainly the Reserves, getting out of the service can be at best, a hassle, at worst, a nightmare.

Every day there are new incentives popping up for military reenlistment and military signups. Soldiers receive bonuses up front if they reenlist, as well as a promise of a set income. Friends who are referred by troops mean money to the soldiers who aid them to enroll. The government is adding more and more money, as the numbers of soldiers and enlistees grow smaller and smaller. Because the military is hard up for help right now due to the Iraqi war, the incentives serve as a way to keep the soldiers they have. Except for those who joined the military for career aspects, meaning mainly Reserve soldiers who go to drill on weekends and are supposedly the second called up troops in an emergency, the money was the reason they joined in the first place. For the government to offer more, and to offer enough to make a difference in the overall income, is shameful as a bribe to ask a soldier to continue to risk their life for.

After Active Reserve duty is completed, soldiers should be able to perform the Inactive Ready Reserve (IRR) part of their service. Whether or not they have gone to war, they are eligible according to contracts to serve as an active Reserve for a certain amount of years, and as an inactive reserve for the last part of their contracted years. A recent development in the military is the inability of one to request enrollment in IRR. The soldiers, most of who went to Iraq, Afghanistan, or Korea, are now told that they must, in addition to being on call to return to a war zone as contractually said, also continue the roles they held as active Reserves. This means that they are not longer letting soldiers leave the military active status, no matter what the original time frame was in the contract. Because the government has a small print paragraph about the right to reserve Reserves in a time of need, thousands of soldiers cannot return to normal civilian life through IRR until their full term is met.

To make things even worse, the rumors of an Iran attack are numerous and strong. Now how will our Reserve heroes be free?