Vet News: No Plans to Activate IRR Sailors

Navy officials said Wednesday they have no plans to activate sailors from the Individual Ready Reserve, unlike the Marine Corps, which just asked Congress to authorize them to call 2,500 IRR Marines.

Navy officials say they will rely on volunteers instead.

But that doesn’t mean the service isn’t interested in learning more about their non-drilling reservists and how many of them are potential volunteers — on the contrary, officials now plan the most ambitious muster of the IRR they’ve ever attempted.

“On October 1, 2006, we will implement Phase II of our virtual screening web portal in which we will continue to muster and screen the entire [61,267] IRR population over the course of a year,” Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Linville, IRR/Voluntary Training Unit mobilization coordinator at the Naval Personnel Command in Millington, Tenn.

The site has yet to be made live, but is officials say when ready it will be available through the Navy Knowledge Online Web Portal.

That muster comes on the heels of this year’s on-site muster, which concluded in August with 4,000 officers and enlisted IRR members in what Linville called “high-demand designators and ratings” mustered in person at reserve centers around the country.

“This year we undertook the largest muster of the IRR ever attempted.” He said “Thus far, the musters have resulted in over 100 Selected Reserve affiliations and 25 voluntary mobilizations and growing.

In addition, Linville said his office already has a list of approximately 200 IRR sailors volunteering to serve and another 500 who expressed an interest in being mobilized as a result of the muster initiative.

But for now, he says, there’s no involuntary call on the horizon.

“The Navy is dedicated to maximizing volunteerism from the reserve force,” he said.

“Today there are approximately 237 IRR Sailors serving on active duty, and since 9/11 we have voluntarily mobilized 785 IRR sailors.”

Those mobilized today are currently serving in the Central Command area of responsibility. It is the highest number of IRR mobilizations IRR history, Linville said.

He estimates that 60 percent those sailors are supporting the Naval Expeditionary Logistics Force Customs and the others are in individual augmentation billets such as civil affairs.

SOURCE: VNIS