Reservists bear heavy burden in war’s 4th year

updated 9:18 p.m. ET June 27, 2006

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Unlike many Marines in this dangerous city, Staff Sgt. George Scott could have said “no.” He could have stayed home in Ohio with his two young sons.

Pentagon rules limit the number of times reservists like Scott can be called to duty involuntarily. But Scott keeps coming back. He’s on his third tour now, and said he’d volunteer for a fourth.

“I like to be a Marine, leading Marines, and being around them,” said Scott, who in civilian life is a car dealer service manager in Orwell, Ohio.

With the war in Iraq still raging after three years and the full-time military stretched thin, the Pentagon is counting on, and courting, committed volunteers like Scott to fill the ranks.

Scott served earlier in Iraq with another unit, but volunteered to help the 1st Battalion, 25th Regiment, 4th Marine Division, when it was looking for more troops. Many others also agreed to deploy again: About half of the 500 original members of the 1st Battalion are in Iraq by choice, said Gunnery Sgt. Pete Walz, a spokesman for the reserve battalion stationed in Fort Devens, Mass.

The 1st Battalion’s numbers show the increasing reliance on volunteers from the reserves and the National Guard, even as the total number of reserve units is going down.

The extended Iraq conflict, and the Afghanistan fight, have forced U.S. commanders to use reserve forces more heavily than at any other time in recent decades.

During the Vietnam War, active duty troops did the vast majority of the fighting. In Iraq, by comparison, the reserve troops made up half of the ground force for much of last year.

After signs that the reserve system was in trouble — including a major recruiting shortfall by the Army National Guard — the Pentagon moved to reduce the numbers of reservists called up. Of the roughly 127,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, the proportion has dropped to about 21 percent, said Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

U.S. commanders have said part-time troops will play a much smaller combat role for the remainder of the war.

Sharing the duty, and the dying
But reservists haven’t shared only the duty, they’ve shared the toll. In 2004, about 20 percent of the 845 U.S. military deaths in Iraq came from the reservists’ ranks. In the first nine months of 2005 — when an Army National Guard division was sent into battle for the first time since the Korean War — reservists accounted for 36 percent of 595 U.S. deaths.

Though many reservists and national guardsmen in Iraq have been assigned to support roles, others have been sent to some of the most violent areas of the country. Scott’s battalion is responsible for Fallujah, the former insurgent stronghold where militants are trying to make inroads.

It’s no less dangerous for these reservists than for the active-duty Marines.

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