An Open Letter to an Army Human Resources Command spokesman

Dear Mr. Gall,

This letter is regarding your remarks in a recent Stars and Stripes article about the IRR, “Army mustering IRR members, reinvigorating force”. The article in itself is nothing surprising – the Army had no handle on its IRR system, more than half the recalls didn’t show, yadda yadda I’ve been bitching about those same things for over a year now. However, at the end of the article you are quoted as saying something that turned my face red and caused everyone in my section to laugh at the size of the vein in my forehead as it swelled to abnormally large status.

But to ensure fewer unpleasant surprises in future mobilizations — like call-ups
of dead IRR members — Army officials plan to physically muster no more than 20
percent of “their smiling little faces” each year, Gall said.

I am sure you think that was a cute, funny little quote, Mr. Gall. Probably got you a nice little laugh from co-workers at your plush office in HRC – St. Louis. “Oh Ray, that was really witty, especially because most of the IRR are really bitter, pissed off veterans, and a smile is the last thing we see on their faces!” That’s good; I get it, haha at me for being the idiot to show up. Here’s what you don’t seem to get in your ignorant joke. Most of the IRR are bitter and angry because we’ve served our country, at least once, and have tried to move on. In fact, I’d give a very educated guess that in my IRR recall class of about 300, at least 90% had at least one deployment. Several dozen had cases of PTSD so severe they were discharged, but the ones with mild problems were happily sent to Iraq or Afghanistan.

I guess it’s funny though to you though, that we aren’t smiling and how angry we are. I guess it’s funny that despite years of honorable service, we were called up and treated like second class citizens for over a year. Yes, we are the dreaded IRR, and despite having a lifetime more experience than most of the people who thumb their noses at us, we’re still treated like second thoughts.

I guess it’s funny that we left families, school, jobs, homes; we left these things unfinished, we lost out on promotions, we put everything on hold. We tried to start a new life for ourselves, and despite being rudely interrupted, we answered the recall – we understand our obligation and we honored it.

Forget about the recruiter who told us the IRR only gets recalled in the event of WWIII; forget about a system so badly mismanaged that more than double the actual number of needed people were recalled; forget about the fact that our unit admitted it shouldn’t have recalled us but still wouldn’t send us home; we knew we signed a contract and we were obligated to it. So we reported as ordered. We just didn’t do it all that happily. And to make a joke at our expense, Mr. Gall, would really take a lot of - well - gall.

Sincerely,

A pissed off and now very annoyed IRR recall