Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Our full-time Reserves

Thursday, June 12, 2003 | 8:14 a.m.

THE SECOND TOUR OF DUTY within months after returning from the first tour must have made many military reservists and National Guard members look at their hole card. Others didn't even have a break in service but were extended when still overseas. We didn't hear a lot of whining because our part-time military people serving in Nevada knew they were needed and had signed up for this kind of duty.

Many of our military people are still in hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan. Their families are here at home doing more with less money and financial security. When returning home some of them will find changes at home and work with which they are unfamiliar. Like previous tours of duty they will struggle with the changes and in a few months will be back in the swing of civilian life.

What will be their attitude if they are recalled to active duty next year? Will they respond as they have during recent years? Probably, because of their patriotism and strong feelings of responsibility as good citizens. What the Department of Defense had better plan for is the strong possibility that fewer people will be signing up as guardsmen and reservists.

Almost every person serves in the Israel Defense Forces and for the past three years all of them have served two or more tours of active duty. Between wars the Israelis spend at least a month on active duty annually. Do they get tired of this interruption of their civilian life and jobs? You bet they do, but for them it's a matter of survival and defending against an immediate threat to the existence of their nation. More than once the Israelis have been attacked from three sides by several nations, and then came terrorist attacks within their borders. The deaths of parents, children and other family members have demanded sacrifices to survive. Nevertheless, during quiet times the necessity to leave jobs and train becomes a drain on their lives.

Fortunately the threats to our nation are rarely immediate and right here at home. Some terrorists have brought these threats into our homes and certainly they hope to continue this activity. Despite this threat, peace reigns over most of our large country as we go about our daily lives. We must plan and prepare for the next interruption of life in our society because we know not when it will come.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense had better be seeking new methods of meeting threats from within and without. Last year when many reservists and guardsmen had their active duty extended a problem became evident. Tuesday the USA Today carried a front page article by Dave Moniz that read in part:

"As of April 30, the Guard was nearly 6,000 recruits short of where if needed to be on that date to meet its Sept. 30 target of enlisting 62,000 soldiers, Pentagon statistics show. If the Guard can't reverse the shortfall, it will mark the first time since 1998 that it has failed to fill its ranks.

"The Army Reserve is also lagging behind and was more than 700 soldiers short of where it needed to be in April to meet its Sept. 30 goal of 42,000..."

Moniz goes on to write that 'The demands on National Guard and Reserve troops, most of whom have full-time civilian jobs, have been unrelenting. Some units, including military police and nation-building soldiers known as civil affairs specialists, have been on active duty almost constantly since the Sept. 11 attacks. Last year, the Pentagon extended about 15,000 Reservists for a second consecutive year of active duty, the first time that has happened since the Vietnam War..."

In this world of turmoil it might be wise to start up a draft that requires two years active duty and four years reserve duty for every qualified American.

I know all the arguments against such a military draft, but right now we had better give it some serious thought. Better yet, the big thinkers at the national level should come up with another answer. They shouldn't rely on the problem going away or that they will be out of office when the next serious threat appears on the horizon.

The problem and the threat are already here.