What Is The IRR?
In short, the IRR (Individual Ready Reserve) is what time left on your 8 year military service obligation after you did your active or reserve time. For example, if you did 5 years active or in the Army Reserve, you would spend 3 years in the IRR.
While you are in the IRR, you are only obligated to one thing. It’s a big thing. If the government tells you to go back in, you are contractually obligated to report.
This doesn’t just mean you are only in up to the 8 year point. They can call you in at 7 years, 364 days. As long as they got you in, they can keep you for as long as they need you.
When I Was Pulled from the IRR
I got out of the Army on July 6th, 2007 and entered into the IRR. One year later, on July 6th, 2008, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was to report to Ft. Benning for reentry into the Army. This letter was opened about 10 days prior. I was a flight attendant at the time and living out of my car, but I had my physical address at my parents house. I’d pick up my mail when I would visit them.
The Department of the Army was contacted about the orders and to see if I could get an extension. The gentleman that answered told me that I probably wouldn’t get one if I tried, that it would be best to show up on time. So I did. What a mistake.
I was called back in to an Army Reserve unit, but this didn’t make sense because I was an Infantryman. My whole time while I was recruiting, I was always told and told future soldiers that the Reserves are for non-combat MOS’s (Military Occupational Specialty, a fancy way of saying “job”). Come to find out there is one combat unit in the Army Reserves, the historic 100/442nd Infantry out of Hawaii, Saipan, Guam, and American Samoa.
The look on my military ID pretty much sums up what I thought about getting recalled
What I Did In the IRR
Those of us that were called back in did processing at Ft. Benning, GA, then got transferred to Ft. Hood, TX to meet up with the 442nd Infantry. We “trained” there for a couple months before getting based in Camp Virginia, Kuwait. There, we ran convoy missions on a completely safe route into southern Iraq. Every once in a blue moon, one of the convoy escort teams would get to go to a different base.
Job Highlights
- I finally got to do what I wanted to do when I thought I signed up for “Mechanized Infantry.” I got to drive a vehicle! The whole time I was there, I drove an up-armored Humvee. I did get trained to drive the ASV (Armored Security Vehicle), and if we had more time, I may have been given training to drive one of these monstrosities:
From Wikipedia: MRAP – Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected vehicle program that ran almost $50,000,000,000. These vehicles, along with the ASV’s (from what I could find, those ran at least $600,000 a piece), weren’t needed for the mission, but the mission received many of them anyways
Positive Takeaways
- Met some cool people (but honestly, you can do this anywhere).
- I got to eat cookies and ice cream for free every day. Put a cookie in a bowl, a scoop of ice cream on top of it, then put another cookie on top. I would then microwave it, then enjoy. It’s how I dealt with the mental anguish.
- After I got back stateside, I started to post on my old website how wasteful the government is when it comes to war, and I started doing more research on war and politics. I was able to convince a handful of kids to not join the military. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help a young lad that sent me the following email:
One of the hardest things I have had to do was tell this kid to go back and finish his training or he would go to jail. Hopefully his unit was better than his Basic Training experience, but why wasn’t anyone getting smoked?
Negative Takeaways
- When you are sitting in your tent and all you think is “What am I doing here?”, it starts to wear down on you. There was no reason for me to be there, and I no longer believed in what we were doing. I would go up to 40 hours with no sleep. It confused me how I could feel so depressed, but not be fighting in a war like I did in my first deployment.
- The above was only heightened when I saw how much money was wasted on everything. I couldn’t help but think that if all of this money was just invested in American citizens, the world, and America, would be a much better place.
- People are usually very one sided when it comes to the military – either they are fully for it, or fully against it. Those who are fully for it are the most annoying people in the world. No matter what you tell them, you are wrong or a sissy.
- We had a guy in the unit that got to try to break the world record for longest drumming session. The unit was 100% behind him and gave him everything he needed. The “soldier” lied about his condition and situation and the public ate it all up. Regardless to say, he failed in his attempt miserably, and even lied about that.
Possibly the Worst Overall Takeaway
- Generally when you are stop-lossed, your ETS (End of Term of Service – your last day in the military) date is pushed back to fulfill a deployment of your unit. It could be anywhere from a day until as long as the unit is deployed. The government eventually began to pay soldiers some extra money for holding them in for the extra time.However, if you were recalled, you weren’t entitled to any benefits unless you were held past the 8 year MSO. Stop-Loss = Delay in personal life. Recall = Interruption in personal life. Why would someone in a worse situation not be compensated just the same, if not better?
Final Words of the IRR
Part of me wishes I would’ve never shown up, especially after I found out nothing would’ve happened to me. However, this experience taught me first hand at how wasteful the government is; however, it’s crazy to me that when you tell people how wasteful it is, a lot of people are unshaken by it. “The cost of freedom” or “Oh well” they say.
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