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The 'Individual Ready Reserve' ("IRR") is a category of the Reserve Component of the Armed Forces of the United States composed of former active duty or reserve military personnel, and is authorized under . As of June 22, 2004, the IRR had approximately 112,000 members (does not include all service IRR populations) composed of enlisted personnel and officers, with more than 200 Military Occupational Specialties are represented, including combat arms, combat support, and combat service support.
An individual assigned to the IRR receives no pay or benefits and is not obligated to drill, conduct annual training, or participate in any military activities (except for periodic Muster activities) until activated by Presidential Reserve Callup Authority. An individual assigned to the IRR may receive pay or benefits for voluntarily performing specific types of active duty.
By law, they are only required to retain possession of their service uniforms, retain their military identification card, and notify their service branch if they move and change their address.

Contents

Callup Authority and Activation

Activations in the Global War on Terror

See also

References

Callup Authority and Activation

"Presidential Reserve Callup Authority" (PRCA) is a Provision of a public law (US Code, Title 10 (DOD), section 12304) that provides the President a means to activate, without a declaration of national emergency, not more than 200,000 members of the Selected Reserve and the Individual Ready Reserve (of whom not more than 30,000 may be members of the Individual Ready Reserve), for not more than 270 days to meet the support requirements of any operational mission. Members called under this provision may not be used for disaster relief or to suppress insurrection. This authority has particular utility when used in circumstances in which the escalatory national or international signals of partial or full mobilization would be undesirable. Forces available under this authority can provide a tailored, limited-scope, deterrent, or operational response, or may be used as a precursor to any subsequent mobilization.^[1]
When activated by Presidential Reserve Callup Authority, soldiers are required to follow the activation instructions contained in Army Regulation 135-91 specifying that members of the IRR can be required to join an Army Reserve unit if they are statutorily obligated and have a skill needed by the Army. Reserve soldiers are normally obligated to serve up to two years active duty, a requirement that is waiverable by the individual soldier, mission constraints, or the needs of the Army.

Activations in the Global War on Terror

Until the Global War on Terror, members of the Individual Ready Reserve had not been called up since Operation Desert Storm^[2]. In March 2004, Army Human Resources Command began identifying IRR soldiers with Military Occupational Specialties that met the needs of the Army at that time. In June 2004, those soldiers were transferred into Selected Reserve units to begin drilling, training, and preparing for deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Approximately 5,600 IRR soldiers were notified during the initial call up. Since 2004, approximately 51% of IRR soldiers called up have actually reported.
History of Global War on Terror activations:
29 July, 2004:

★ 5,600 members of the IRR, mainly with specialties as military police or civil affairs officers, were called back to active duty to support U.S. forces in Iraq. This activation was the first time that the IRR had been called upon since the 1991 Gulf War, when approximately 20,000 IRR troops were called up in support of Operation Desert Storm.
April 2005:

★ Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has authorized the Army to mobilize up to 6,500 Individual Ready Reservists at any one time;^[3]

★ 3,900 IRR members with critical specialties have been called to active duty;

★ About half of those called have reported for duty;

★ About 550 of those called have failed to report for duty, some claiming exemptions, others ignoring their orders.
August 2006:

★ President Bush has authorized the U.S. Marine Corps to recall 2,500 troops to active duty.^[4]
March 2007:

★ Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates approved the recall of 1800 Marines not in their first or last year of their IRR contract, 1200 of which will be Sergeants and Captains joining the I MEF in Iraq. Here broken down by MOS:

★
★ Aviation maintenance, 361

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★ Logistics support, 225

★
★ Infantry, tanks and artillery, 223

★
★ Motor transport, 178

★
★ Communications, 97

★
★ Intelligence, 95

★
★ Military police, 21
They will be used for early rotation into a 2008 deployment. If more troops are needed, another recall could happen in July.^[5]

See also

★ United States Army Reserve

★ Battle Assembly

References

1. GlobalSecurity.org U.S. Army Individual Ready Reserve (IRR)
2. The Mobilization of Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) Infantrymen During Operation DESERT STORM
3. Most Individual Ready Reservists Reporting as Ordered
4. Bush OKs involuntary Marine recall
5. "1,800 Individual Ready Reserve Marines may get yearlong deployment." Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Tuesday, March 27, 2007