Sorry, forgot the link in the above.

How did all of these IRR soldiers who stay at home get out (see Army Times article used in interview)?

He is in the Army Reserve and NOT under a stop loss. They were very specific about that in the interviews that I saw. The Army Reserve spokeman said that he didn't meet the "criteria" for having his resignation accepted. How can the Army Reserve criteria be different than a stop loss? Are not Active Duty and IRR officers of his rank and specialty being released?

Regardless of how much the tuition costs, is a deal not a deal? He serves 125% of his contract and they told him they can retain him until he is 50. What would happen if he stopped going to drill or flunked his PT or H/W?

Who is responsible for the shortage? This guys has to pay for someone else's mismanagement.

Maybe I am taking it light on the guy because he is local and I saw more coverage......

Going into college I flirted with the idea of ROTC or some Reserves commitment as a way of paying for school. One point in favor was that if it wasn't working out for me I would be out in four years. If I'd had any idea that my obligation could stretch to, theoretically, decades... I would have hung up the phone a lot sooner.

It's important for the Army to set its policies in a way that reflects the public mood. Stop-loss is right now something of a dirty little secret. I think that if more high schoolers become aware of their indefinite commitments we'll see the final nail in the recruitment quota coffin.

First off, this guy is a logistician, or supply officer. An essential function, but not a front line troup. There is not a huge shortage of logisticians, compared to MPs and Intel folks.

Perhaps the Army is different from the Navy and Air Force (I doubt it) but you do not get a full ride scholarship in them without going into the active duty military for at least a couple of years, though this article says the Army lets this happen. I could be wrong here - I only know the Navy and Air Force.

I DO understand the difference between Army Reserve and Army National Guard - the article says Army Reserve. This action is what I would expect out of locally controlled Guard, not federally controlled Reserve.

This stinks of poor reporting. Or local stupidity.

If for no other reason than the bad PR a "soldier sues Army in order to get out" type stories. The Army would do much better to let them go, and work harder on recruitment and retention.

Yes. But that tradition was in the context of a conscript military. That is, it was presumed that able bodied men had a duty to serve during wartime. I would argue that 1) we're not at war in the traditional sense (Iraq is a stability op, not a traditional war) and that 2) one can't have an infinite duty to serve if most have none.

It was a Vietnam-era innovation that allowed people to get out even while hostilities were ongoing.