WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (AFP) - More than 600 former soldiers who were mobilized in July from a rarely tapped pool of reservists have failed to report for duty, and hundreds more have asked for delays or exemptions from the call-up, senior army officials said Friday.
So far no one has been declared "absent without leave," and the army still expects to meet the goal of a call-up in July of the army's Individual Ready Reserve officials said.
But the response reflects the pervasive strains the army faces as it strives to keep combat units manned and ready for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In calling up the Individual Ready Reserve, the army is turning to former soldiers who left the service with no expectation of being recalled to active duty except in a national emergency. The last time the IRR was called up was in the 1991 Gulf War.
Many were surprised by the army's decision to mobilize 5,674 former soldiers from the IRR to fill vacancies in combat units deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan.
The army itself assumed that only about 4,400 of those would actually be put on active duty, with the remainder washing out for medical or other reasons.
Brigadier General Sean Byrne, the army's director of personnel policy, told reporters the army still expects to meet that goal.
"About a third of them for one reason or another will be exempted. I think the 4,400 number is probably pretty solid," he said.
But Byrne acknowledged that the army is watching the mobilization figures closely, and going to extra lengths to contact former soldiers who had failed to report for duty to discuss their situation.
"There is no one who has had a duty status change where they are considered AWOL," Byrne said. "There are a number of people we have contacted where we are working their individual cases, but no one is considered AWOL at this point."
He said 622 soldiers ordered to report for duty since August 31 have failed to do so. Of those, 375 have been contacted, but 247 others have not been located.
In addition, of 3,899 who have been sent orders to report to a duty station, 1,374 have asked that their duty period be delayed or that they be exempted from active duty.
"As we contact people, we are amenable to give them a deferral or give them more time if they've got some personal issues that they need to deal with," Byrne said.
"We're basically in new territory here," he said. "That's why we're dealing with every individual case to make sure we're giving everyone appropriate time to rectify whatever situation they are in."
Robert Smiley, principal assistant secretary of the army for manpower and reserve affairs, said the army probably will have to tap into IRR next year as well in about the same numbers for troop rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan in late 2005 and early 2006.
The army, meanwhile, plans to recruit more troops in 2005 but has decided to settle for recruiting fewer high school graduates.
Instead of a goal of having 92 percent of new recruits be high school graduates, the army's target for 2005 is 90 percent, army officials said.
Although the army met its recruiting goals for fiscal 2004, it is beginning the new year at a disadvantage.
Nearly 46 percent of the army's 2004 recruits had been signed even before the year began, said Major General Michael Rochelle, commander of the army's recruiting command in Fort Knox, Kentucky.
But going into fiscal 2005, the army has in hand only 18.4 percent of the 77,500 recruits it needs for the year, and an improving economy tends to stiffen competition with the private sector for prospective recruits, he said.
Rochelle is adding 1,000 recruiters to his force, and budgeting an additional 12 million dollars for advertising and other expenses.
"Obviously, there is a war going on. Nobody would deny that. And for some people, some of our prospects, or our target age young men or women, that is in fact a drawback, and it will deter some of them," he told reporters.
"For others that is precisely their call to action," he said.