There is a great deal of confusion, disinformation, and misinformation regarding the nature of Bush’s military service. The organization of the Air Reserve Forces is practically Byzantine in its complexity, and it is virtually impossible to make a factually accurate statement with regard to Air Force policies and procedures without citing a long list of conditions, exceptions, and other caveats. Policy manuals are full of jargon and acronyms that are difficult to understand, and require knowledge of other policies as well as the DoD regulations and US Statutes on which those policies are based. The purpose of this faq is to answer questions that have arisen with regard to Bush’s military career in discussions of the articles found within The AWOL Project. Answers will be provided in as “non-technical” manner as the truth allows. Because the purpose of this faq is an understanding of Bush’s military career, some descriptions gloss over irrelevant distinctions, and make general statements that are not applicable to all members of the Air Reserve Forces.
Please send additional questions, comments, corrections, and
suggestions to awol@glcq.com
Q1: Who are you? Why are you doing this?
How did you do it? Etc.
ORGANIZATION OF THE AIR RESERVES FORCES (also see this chart)
Q2:
What is the difference between “Active Status” and “Inactive Status?”
Q3: What is the difference between “Inactive
Status” and the “Inactive Reserves?”
Q4: What is the Individual Ready Reserves
(IRR)?
Q5: What is the Ready Reserve? The Selected Reserve? The Reinforcement Reserves?
Q6:
What is the Standby Reserves?
Q1: Who are you? Why are you
doing this? How did you do it? Etc.
A: Just read http://www.glcq.com/me.htm But be warned, it gets pretty snarky at the end.
(“Inactive Status” is defined in the Air Reserve Forces Personnel Manual as the status of a member who is assigned to ISLRS. “Active Status” is defined as someone who is not in the ISLRS or the Retired Reserves.)
Pehaps the easiest way to think of “Inactive Status” and the ISLRS is consider them as one does the “Retired Reserves” with the primary difference being that those in the ISLRS left the military before they qualified to retire. If you get a military pension, you still have a slightly higher level of obligation to the military than a plain civilian. If Congress acts, the military can “reactivate” those who are receiving pensions in order to meet the needs of the Armed Forces, and it can do the same with those in ISLRS. But for all other intents and purposes, those in both the Retired Reserves and ISLRS are civilians.
“Inactive Reserves” is actually a colloquialism, used to designate those who are in the Reserves, but are not required to train. When someone says that they were in the “Inactive Reserves” what they are generally referring to are the “non-participating Individual Ready Reserves (which was “active status”), or the “active status Stand-by Reserves.” It almost never refers specifically to those in an “inactive status” who are part of the ISLRS (see Q2)
The term “Inactive Reserves” probably has its origins in the fact that, when someone enlists in the”regular Air Force” (aka the “active duty component of the Air Force”), they (usually) sign up for six years, but only have to serve on active duty for three years. This six year commitment is called the Military Service Obligation (MSO), and under the law if you had an “unfulfilled MSO”, you had to serve either in an “active duty component”: or be part of the “Ready Reserves”.
If, after you had completed your active duty commitment you chose to no longer serve on active duty, you had the option of joining the “Selected Reserves” (people who continued to train) or the non-participation “Individual Ready Reserves.” (IRR see Q4) (or in some cases, the “active status Standby Reserves.”) Because the people who chose the non-participating IRR option were no longer on “active duty” and no longer trained, they considered themselves “Inactive”, and IRR became known as the “Inactive Ready Reserves”. But these people remained in an “active status”, and were not placed in an “inactive status” until they had completed their MSO (absent extraordinary circumstances like joining the priesthood, or becoming permanently disabled.)
Q4: What is the Individual Ready
Reserves (IRR)?
The IRR were members of the Air Force Reserves who were eligible for mobilization upon the order of the President (the Ready Reserves), but were not required to train with a unit to which they were assigned.
Generally, Reservists would be mobilized as part of a unit. Some IRRs were assigned to units that they would automatically join in the event that the unit itself was mobilized. These people were called “Individual Mobilization Augmentees (IMAs) and were required to train in order to maintain their readiness, but usually did not train with the unit they would be assigned to in the event of a mobilization.
Those who were not assigned to units were known as “Reinforcement Designees”, and were not required to train to maintain their readiness. They would be assigned to units only upon being mobilized as individuals. Generally, these were Reservists who had originally joined the regular Air Force and had completed their three years of required active duty service, then left the “regular Air Force” and chose to not participate in Reserve training. They nevertheless were subject to involuntary active duty when the President ordered a mobilization of the Ready Reserve because of a “war or national emergency” This also included Reservists assigned to the Obligated Reserve Section which was administered by ARPC, which was comprised of Reservists who had initially joined an Air Reserve Forces component (Air National Guard or Air Force Reserves) and were supposed to train with a Reserve unit because their six year MSO was not up, but for various reasons did not have a unit of assignment with which to train.
Q5: What is the Ready Reserve? The Selected Reserve?
The Ready Reserve is the part of the Reserves that can be mobilized for active duty by the President, without any additional authorization from Congress.
The Selected Reserve was the part of the Ready Reserve that was expected to maintain its readiness to be activated and integrated into the “active component” of the Air Force at all times.
The Selected Reserve consisted of personnel in Selected Reserve units (all National Guard units, and (nearly) all Air Force Reserve units who trained with the units with which they would serve in the event of a mobilization, and Individual Mobilization Augmentees, who were “pre-assigned” to units with which they would serve, and were required to train, but not necessarily with their unit of assignment.
The Reinforcement Reserve consisted of “Reinforcement Designees”, those members of the Ready Reserve that were fully trained, but were not required to do further training, and were not pre-assigned to specific units with which they would serve.