Army to void enlistments [IRR] made under mistaken order

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/05/21/d1.cr.reservesfolo.0521.html

excerpt:

The Army told members of Congress on Thursday that it will revoke the enlistment orders of any veteran who signed up based on mistaken information from recruiters.

"We will revoke the order if the soldier requests," an Army colonel said in a handwritten fax to U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio's office.

DeFazio, a Springfield Democrat, asked that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rescind all enlistments made under the mistaken order. In the meantime, veterans need to request to nullify their enlistment.

The about-face follows several weeks of confusion involving the Individual Ready Reserve, a group of about 118,000 soldiers who had returned to civilian life after a stint in the Army but still had time left on their commitment.

end excerpt

This is a follow up on yesterday's article:
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/05/20/d1.cr.defazioreserves.0520.html

excerpt:

A spokeswoman for the Army's Human Resources Command told Knight-Ridder that some "overzealous" Army recruiters may have intimidated former soldiers to drive up enlistment.

The Army has been forced to look at IRR soldiers because it's been stretched so thin by a recent decision to maintain troop levels in Iraq at 135,000 to 138,000 through at least 2005.

There's a congressman who does his job! Kept this in the news for one or two more cycles as well.

...in the inducement. These people are really unscrupulous.

A friend, a young mother was almost taken in. She was hard sold that if she didn't come in immediately to sign papers to change her status she would be sent to Iraq involuntarily starting May 27. She called her mother, a former WAC who kept up with other family members who had been miliatry. She smelled a rat and told her daughter to let them try to take her because she didn't think that what she had been told was legal. So for the last ten days she has been in anguish wondering if she did the right thing. I would imagine that voiding an enlistment costs money and might even have future reprcussions even if they say it won't.

Worse we are now back to 1970 where you couldn't believe ANYTHING the military told you whether you were military or civilian.