National Guard Recruiters Consider New Pitch To Reservists

Missouri National Guard recruiters are being given new guidance on what to say to get Individual Ready Reservists to join the guard. Individual Ready Reservists – or IRRs – are people who have completed their active duty time and have to serve as inactive reservists to be called up in extreme situations. A letter sent out last month from a Missouri Guard recruiter calls that an unstable situation and even implies IRR can avoid being deployed if they join the Guard. The Guard’s man in charge of recruiting Major Mike Fayette says the Guard just want to give IRRs an option before their options are gone. Pentagon figures show only about four thousand IRRs have been involuntarily called up since this summer, out of more than 180,000 Guard and Reservists called to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fayette admits some people could see the letter as a strong-arm tactic, so it is being reworded.