No. That outlook is one that leadership happens to have right now, but if that were truly the case why do we even bother with SELRES units? If all the Navy wants out of its Reservists is a ready pool of warm bodies, then let's do away with the unit structures that we have today, and pursue an Army-like IMA structure. In fact, why do we even bother to have "mobilization billets" that go with each SELRES billet in a unit - given that the vast, vast majority of Navy Reserve mobilizations are IAs? I'd like to see a day when Navy Reservists are mobilized into Navy billets, not Army billets that have been coded to the Navy. We're 11 years into this fight, and I would think we should have been able to figure out the manpower flows by now. I happen to be one that believes Reservists main job should be their contributory support, and that mobilization should be much more rare thing - and that when it happens it should leverage what they've been doing on DWEs and ATs. I think there are three choices: 1) Align units with expected mobilization responsbilities 2) Eliminate units altogether or 3) Align mobilization billets with existing units.The main goal of the Navy Reserve is to be mobilization ready. Period. If you are able to do peacetime, contributory support, then that is good.
Involuntary mob's are like crack to the active side - tough to kick the habit. I strongly believe the "operationalization" of the Reserve, with a 1-in-5 year mobilization profile, is unsupportable in the long term, and that the Reserves will hemhorrage heavily in coming years. We're already seeing that in a significant drop in gains from folks coming off active duty - they see Reservists getting beaten like rented mules, and say "I'm getting out because I want to spend more time at home (or for other reasons), so why should I sign up for this?" Guys like me with 14+ are in-to-win, and there are still people clamoring for DCO slots and such on the junior end of it - but I think we're going to see a mid-grade T-notch develop and expand over the next few years. If mob's wind down significantly than this might help, but I already see signs that mob's are going to increase as the Navy dumps GSA billets on the Reserves. There's a line out there that's a happy medium between "eating your seed corn" and "under-utilizing your assets" - I happen to think we're burning through our seed corn awfully fast.