Back Door This

Iraq--->The Military---->Stop Loss--->IRR---->Desertion

There have been a lot of news stories lately about back-door drafts, rebellion within the ranks in Iraq, deserters, etc.

Let me first say that if you're not or have never been in the military - you just don't and won't get it so don't try to comment on it. It's like listening to me comment on a football game.

I know nothing about football.

Joining the military involves a contract and a commitment. None of us were contract lawyers, but I didn't know anyone who did not understand their obligations, including IRR time. It sucked, nobody liked it, but everyone knew about it. The recruiter tells you, they tell you again when you in-process, it is a common topic of conversation amoung active duty troops, and they tell you about it another 150 times when you out-process. I can remember at least two occassions during out-processing that I was very clearly and deliberately told about my obligation, what it meant, and how long it lasted. It wasn't a secret, it wasn't small or fine print, and it wasn't unclear, under-played, soft-pedaled, or misrepresented.


The Media

The media component to this is simply misdirective. Their main focus is to make it sound as bad and as unfair as they can figure out how to be. The news stories spend most of their time talking about how the Bush administration is "desperate" for bodies and how "hundreds of thousands" of soldiers are caught in stop-loss and Individual Ready Reservice (IRR) call backs. They rattle public perception, calling it a back-door draft. They tell us that thousands are deserting or not showing up for duty, and they punctuate it by showcasing some soldiers-done-wrong to demonstrate just how underhanded and evil the Bush-Cheny-Demon-Spawn be.

The stories they show haven't been about soldiers who were called back under their their ordinary IRR obligations, tough. They are about adminsitrative screw ups that happen every day in the military. Let me say that again for those of you multi-tasking an Uma Thurman Fan page: adminsitrative screw ups happen every day in the military. And nearly none of them have to do with "back door drafts."

David M. Miyasato was called up due to a clarical error. His orders have been rescinded. I'm surprised there aren't a hundred of him every day.

Rick Howell, Todd Parrish and others like them were officers who didn't appropriately resign their commissions and apparently still had IRR obligations at discharge but claim that they "didn't know." (see above)

And then there are guys who are active duty with a commitment to the country but they just leave; 60 Minutes last night featured deserters hiding out in Toronto, seeking Canadian citizenship. But I'll get back to them in a minute.

What reporters and bad-news executives don't understand and what, I think, the general civilian public doesn't understand is:

1) The military is administratively agressive but inept. If their records show your pay grade as E-4 and you're an E-5, the burden is on you to prove to them that you're an E-5. And it's like a Nintendo game: you have to hunt through the back corners of WW2 barracks fo figure out who are the 5 hidden, secret REMFs that you have to prove it to and visit them in a certain order with contracts and pay vouchers and the seven secret rainbow rings. Again - situations like this happen every day in the military and nobody calls it a backdoor draft.

2) Due to sheer numbers, turnover, and volume of paperwork, the military frequently (figuratively) thinks you're an E-4 when you are actually an E-5. They were wrong frequently. As they have been in some of their IRR recall efforts. It really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

3)If you want to do a story on the back-door draft, go downtown and visit a recruiter. He is back-dooring thousands and young men and women every year. Everyone - I mean everyone - was hoodwinked by their recruiter. None of us knew what we were getting in to and many of us would have run away the second week of Basic if you'd have given us the opportunity. (And most of us had somebody in our platoon that did just that.)

And one side note before I stop talking about the media: None of these news stories bothered to point out that 43% of requests for exemption requests put in by IRR-obligated soldiers have been approved. Only 3% have been denied. The rest are under consideration. I don't know how fair all of that is, but it certainly isn't a draft.


Deserters

I saw a guy on 60 Minutes who had joined the Army for college money. He was walking his little boy down the streets of Toronto having gone AWOL. I love that man for taking care of himself and his little boy. I don't want him shot or arrested or deported and I hope he is granted Canadian citizenship. I am not going to call him any bad names.

There were a couple other guys, all active duty soldiers, who also disagreed with the Iraq war and so now live in Toronto seeking Candian Citizenship.

I've always supported everyone's right to just go ahead and leave if they don't like what's going on in our country. Alec Baldwin, Barbara Striesand, Lee Harvey Oswald, David Koresh. Go ahead and leave. I don't want to live in the United States of Alec Baldwin. And I don't want to have a volunteer Army that's so volunteer that the soldiers vote on whether or not to have a war. When I signed up, I knew I was a grunt. Now that I'm the tired taxpayer, I'm happily paying somebody else to be the grunt and my congressman.

Oh, sorry. I meant to say NOT my congressman because I already have a congressman.

These guys are deserters. Period. There are rules and laws about that. Do what you have to do to take care of your family, but don't get on national television and tell me that you have the right to reneg on your contractual commitment when the guys in your unit - guys with families and kids too - are getting shot at in another country.

Just for clarification: It's the guys in getting shot at who have intestinal fortitude and a sense of honor. The guys in Canada may be "taking a stand" but they are also conveniently not getting shot at at the same time.

Bottom Line

I haven't read or heard a story yet about a soldier who'd fulfilled his commitments and was still being ordered back to duty anyway. I haven't heard about anyone being torn away from family or thrown in jail for not reporting for duty when they had no obligations to start with. I've only heard complicated, contractual-law, administrative nightmare stories, common to everyday military life, where the soldier generally wins the dispute.

So if all of the administrative-error recalls are winning out or not reporting for duty and 43% of IRR requests for exemption are being granted, where's the back-door draft?

There isn't one.

The truth is that if anyone is backdooring anything, it's the media backdooring the idea that US troops are refusing to go or leaving the war filled with righteous indignation because it is just so wrong.

http://www.notinourname.net/troops/callup-16nov04.htm