Editorial: Military officer shortage

Tuesday, March 20, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

Only one-fifth of 10,000 officers among the U.S. Army's Individual Ready Reserve are willing to serve overseas, with the rest either quitting, retiring or being dropped from the service.

The Individual Ready Reserve is a unit of former active-duty National Guard or Army Reserve soldiers who remain part of the Army but do not undergo routine drills or training. They are among the last called for active duty.

With troops spread thinly between wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army sent letters last year to 10,000 officers who are among the Individual Ready Reserve's 87,000 soldiers. Only 4,500 of them even answered the Army's query as to whether they would be willing to serve overseas, and, of those, only 2,123 said that they would go. The others retired or quit. The 5,500 who didn't even answer the letters will be discharged, USA Today reported on Monday.

About 11,000 Individual Ready Reserve soldiers have been called for duty since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. More than half have been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. But the lack of response by some reservists, and the outright objection to deployment by others, could be an indication that support for President Bush's war policy may be waning among some of the Army's experienced troops. Members of the Individual Ready Reserve typically have only a short time left on an obligated term of service. Those the Army contacted last year are experienced officers whose skills are needed.

When Bush began his push to send more than 25,000 additional troops to Iraq earlier this year, a federal audit showed that the Army already was about 3,000 officers short of what is needed. But given the option, too many of those who have the skills and knowledge to serve are saying no way. This strikes at the very heart of the Bush administration's failed war policy, which from the start has been stubbornly pursued with an inadequate number of troops.