AQ-AT-NAVCIV
Citizen Sailor, Gentleman Farmer
I like how social media is mentioned as a tool to contact IRR members.
-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
Bringing IRR into the "Total Force"
- Thread starter subreservist
- Start date
It's not stop-loss.
Reservists can, and are, involuntarily mobilized. Most OCONUS mob's are classified as 'involuntary' because it triggers a bunch of legal protections for the reservist, whether they volunteered for the billet or not. But even then, people get volun-told all the time.
When we had the RMP (Ready Mobilization Pool), you were on a list for a year that said you were eligible to get called up. Usually they had more billets than names, and people would get the call and not be able to deploy for one reason or another (sick, lame, or crazy), so they wound up working their way through the list every year. Guys would see their name on the list and jump ship to the IRR before they got orders. Your CoC didn't have to approve your request to go IRR - I have heard of one guy who was told to suck it up - but usually they did. You were sent to the IRR with prejudice, and something like a re-enlistment code that said you were dead to the Navy.
The RMP was done away with and now it's one big pool of names. They did away with sanctuary too, though they're supposed to call on guys who've mobilized before last.
If the Big One goes off and they're calling up the IRR, then yeah, the President signs stuff and willingness doesn't matter. However, that's not what they're talking about now. They're saying, we've got all these dudes in non-drill and VTUs, why not make use of them?
The problem goes back to matching talents, qualifications, availability, and billets. And then somehow making it all fit within the existing infrastructure of reserve call-up law and code. It's already pretty unwieldy in the active reserves, and those are guys who still show up for drill weekends and fit in their uniforms.
vxc961
.
Isn't this also something like what the ARmy(my dad, so dated) and IMA billets are like? My dad was Army IRR, and would do like 45 days in Germany per year for his last 10 years. I have coworkers who do ADT(?)once a year for all their points.
This seems like a good way for those who somehow want to stay viable, but do t want the hassle of monthly drills, to keep in touch with the Navy and help out when needed.
This seems like a good way for those who somehow want to stay viable, but do t want the hassle of monthly drills, to keep in touch with the Navy and help out when needed.
It seems quite a bit different from how we deploy in the guard. Although my last deployment was a 12 aircraft company level deployment, we typically deploy as a General Service Aviation Battalion (GSAB). This involves companies and detachments from across as many as 5 states. There are almost as many air assets as an airwing. When the warning order comes out...YOU ARE GOING ON DEPLOYMENT!
You guys are kind of talking about two different things. Rob, you're talking more a unit MOB versus an individual MOB. I get the end result is the same, but by the very nature of what The Guard is, you guys just get deployed more than a typical Navy Reserve aviation unit. I'd argue that's because most Reserve aviation units fill a very niche roll (SOF, EW, red air, etc). VR is obviously it's own animal that is always on the job.
It's very expensive to MOB an entire squadron, so it's not as common an occurrence (-84 and -209 are some of the most recent examples...and I'm not completely sure if -209 was actually MOB'ed). On the individual MOB side, it's just an everyday occurrence in order to fill various shortfalls and/or requirements.
It's very expensive to MOB an entire squadron, so it's not as common an occurrence (-84 and -209 are some of the most recent examples...and I'm not completely sure if -209 was actually MOB'ed). On the individual MOB side, it's just an everyday occurrence in order to fill various shortfalls and/or requirements.
FWIW, 5 full mob's (and demob's...). The ass pain was considerable. The only easy one was the first one, for OIF in 2006 - that was before the Navy had set up the NMPS process. It was easy - signed some paperwork, and presto we were on active duty. After that, it was a series of multi-day torture sessions in Norfolk.
Been through two mob's now, plus an IA (which is the same process but you wind up with more time to kill).
If you're organized and in shape and medically cleared, mobilization is a whole lot of nothing. The process has become ass-pain over years of Reservists showing up with horrifying conditions - mostly medical, but everything under the sun - that weren't caught until they were downrange. Most of us on here are used to flying-unit reserves where annual flight physicals tend to catch everything that would be a show-stopper. Couch-reserve units don't tend to be as good about it. Recently we had a problem where a guy showed up to NMPS with a torn ACL. And even if it's not that severe, once they mobilize you, they can't demob you with any pending medical issues. So something chronic but not necessarily a show-stopper - back issues, say, or high blood pressure - they want to catch before mobilizing. Otherwise they can spend months or longer on a medical hold, which nobody budgeted for, while the Navy fixes you up.
Anyway, that kind of speaks to the original topic. Calling up IRR sailors for niche specialties sounds good in theory, but falls apart in practice.
Oh, wow. I wasn't sure if they were MOB'ed, but not surprised to hear it.
Beside not doing IA or onesy twosey deployments, the guard hasn't been sending people to the IRR lately. You are either drilling in the guard or you are OUT. Given these differences it seems any new policies regarding the IRR will have little or no affect on the guard.
It seems like the Air Force as a whole does not provide an indefinite IRR option.
No one really does, except the Navy to a degree.
Honestly, hearing the pain points expressed in this thread, the solution is probably not a more active IRR or an IRR skills database or even more funding. Maybe the solution is a streamlined framework for acquisition (specifically, professional services contracting) where the Navy can hire the exact 1 contractor they want for up to 12 months (or other, short-term threshold time period) without going through the normal FedBizOpps gov't contracting process.
Because it sounds like you need "Bob the China SME" and not "Bob the China SME who wears a uniform and meets height weight PRT standards and all sorts of other unnecessary red tape type of military criteria for such a limited scope, short term assignment."
EDIT 1: This works even if Bob never served in uniform and isn't in the IRR. He's just a China SME from other means.
EDIT 2: I hope it goes without saying that this probably only works for career fields that aren't URL. And, maybe not all of those, either, depending on the need.
But hey, if you can meet 80% of the need with a few legal/regulatory changes and not a lot of money, why not explore the option?
The downside obviously would be nepotism/favoritism and a diminished sense of purpose for the Federal civilians (who may ask "why hire this Bob China SME guy who never had to apply on USAJobs but makes more $$ than me?"). The answer is that USAJobs is too slow, doesn't always select Bob, and Bob may not want to make a whole career out of this China thing.
Because it sounds like you need "Bob the China SME" and not "Bob the China SME who wears a uniform and meets height weight PRT standards and all sorts of other unnecessary red tape type of military criteria for such a limited scope, short term assignment."
EDIT 1: This works even if Bob never served in uniform and isn't in the IRR. He's just a China SME from other means.
EDIT 2: I hope it goes without saying that this probably only works for career fields that aren't URL. And, maybe not all of those, either, depending on the need.
But hey, if you can meet 80% of the need with a few legal/regulatory changes and not a lot of money, why not explore the option?
The downside obviously would be nepotism/favoritism and a diminished sense of purpose for the Federal civilians (who may ask "why hire this Bob China SME guy who never had to apply on USAJobs but makes more $$ than me?"). The answer is that USAJobs is too slow, doesn't always select Bob, and Bob may not want to make a whole career out of this China thing.
Last edited:
vxc961
.
Good points, but I still think the Navy get can do better tracking skills, and allowing those in the IRR to stay in closer contact with the force, without too much effort/cost. I think it's worth defining intentions too, as the original article makes it seem like two things: pulling joe civ off the street as some sort of expert, and also keeping those who have already served a little more connected so they're able and perhaps willing to be utilized. I think a fair amount went IRR because SELRES is such a pain in the rear
There is already a process for what you're talking about...that's what body-farm contractors supply. You're used to seeing techreps but they're out there in all kinds of specialties, including linguists and such. Why should the federal government hire someone, even on a NTE temporary hire basis, when they can go to one of dozens of contractors and have them find someone?
The reality is that the IRR is just a holding tank for people with obligated service remaining, or who just want to stay in the Reserves, but through whatever combination of factors, can't get a paying billet. Actually using them presents all kinds of operational headaches. A more feasible path might be to make the Active Reserves more of an operational reserve, like the ANG/NG, and the IRR the 'strategic reserve' manpower pool for the Next Big War.
Right now there is no coherent vision for how the Navy wants to use the Reserves - or if there is, it's not being widely articulated outside of Flag levels. I tend to think it's the traditional Navy reluctance to alter infrastructure for what it sees as temporary needs, even though this "temporary wartime state of affairs" with large numbers of Reservists on active duty has been going on for close to 14 years now.
That already happens to a degree, I saw it firsthand with some folks downrange and know of others. It is a real mixed bag though and they were usually specialists who advised high-ranking folks and did not do normal day-to-day stuff like what a reservist does. The mixed bag part was that some of these specialists were probably a waste of money, even the husband and wife team who were 'free', and their 'expertise' was often of limited utility.
The reservist part would be much more 'worker bee' level; nuke types who work for electrical companies and can monitor electrical projects in an area, a rancher who knows what a good drip irrigation setup looks like and whether or not the chicken farms we help fund are viable, and the former SWO who works oil operations and can visit a refinery and tell whether or not it is working. All three guys of those guys we had on the staff I worked on but not a single one had been placed there for those reasons, it was just happenstance.
Our government has enough 'big brains' but we are sometimes lacking in the everyday expertise that it takes to make things work, especially in the third world. At least in the reserves case we have it but the military doesn't know about it.