Married only a year when her husband was called up for the Iraq war last year, Kimberly Huff eventually gave him an ultimatum: Stay married or stay in the U.S. Army Reserves.
After more than 14 years in the Reserves, Staff Sgt. Roger Huff, 31, was about to re-enlist, even after a year in Kuwait and Iraq and with no date set to return home.
Last week, Huff, a medic, made the anguishing decision to quit once his duty is completed.
“I have had to choose between a retirement [from the Reserves] that was only five years away, or my marriage,” Huff said in an e-mail from Kuwait. “This deployment has caused much strain. … A year is just too long to be away from one’s civilian life.”
“I am relieved,” Kimberly Huff said in an interview, “but I cannot say I am declaring a victory of any sort. I recognize this was not easy for him, and I can respectfully say I am sorry for my part in this. But I had no choice.”
Huff’s plan to leave the Reserves comes as a recent U.S. military questionnaire of returning Army National Guard soldiers is projecting an increased resignation rate.
The findings raise concerns about a military exodus at a time when the Bush administration increasingly relies on reservists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The military’s recent sampling of about 5,000 National Guard members returning to 15 states after deployments of a year or more yielded a exit rate of about 22 percent , almost twice the figure from November 2001 to December 2003.The Guard’s current goal is an exit rate of 18 percent.
The unscientific survey, designed to help commanders assess problems facing the homebound Guard, projects that 20 to 22 percent of soldiers will leave the military once their terms expire in the near future.
That figure was borne out by figures from October to December, when 2,400 of 10,340 Guard members opted not to re-enlist, a 23 percent rate, officials said. The drop was offset, however, by 5,589 reservists who re-enlisted early.
Experts say the survey’s high projections signal a potential crisis. Many have joined the National Guard with the expectation of being called into duty for limited state emergencies such as floods rather than yearlong deployments overseas, they note.
“This is a much more family-oriented, stable, and professional force than it used to be,” said defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a non-partisan, conservative think tank.
“We all understand what’s the bottom line: People didn’t expect this degree of intensity. They didn’t expect to have to go this long and that it would be this dangerous,” Thompson said.
Current deployments of up to 18 months, involving 97,000 guardsmen so far and 35,000 more for new rotations in coming months, represent the biggest and longest tours of duty since the Korean War, the Guard’s national lobbying group said. About 35,000 more guardsmen are to be mobilized for approaching Iraq rotations, experts said.
No `panic mode’
“Within the Guard community, I think you can definitely characterize that there is some concern about people coming home and getting out,” said spokesman John Goheen of the National Guard Association, a non-profit lobbying group. “But I don’t think anybody is in a panic mode.”
Since the questionnaire’s finding were made public in late January, the National Guard has discouraged applying the results to the entire 350,000-member force.
“It can’t be applied nationally because, like I said, it’s only 5,000 soldiers from 15 states,” said National Guard Bureau spokeswoman Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke.
“It’s a commanders’ climate survey, and it’s used to determine if the soldiers have any problems when they come back to the unit. And that’s how we’re using it.”
Krenke said many of those problems focus largely on family adjustments and job re-entry.
Guard members also have complained about body armor that lacks a ceramic plate to protect them, and Humvees lacking armor–two protections that some regular enlisted Army soldiers enjoy.
Those concerns are being addressed, Krenke said.
The projected 20-22 percent exit rate matches the Guard’s experience in 1991 after the gulf war, when just more than 20 percent of personnel decided against re-enlistment, Krenke said.
Iraq war critic Nancy Lessin, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, cited how some Guard units, such as one in Oregon, hadn’t been deployed overseas since World War II. Then their six-month deployment is extended to a total of 17 months, with “stop-loss” orders suspending enlistment expirations, putting Guard members’ families and careers in limbo, she said.
“Now these people are finding themselves deployed in a war that many families are questioning,” said Lessin, 54, of Boston, a coordinator with the Massachusetts AFL-CIO whose stepson is in the Marines and just returned from Iraq. “The framework here is they’re being sent over to a reckless military misadventure.”
Not all Guard members and their families feel that way, said Goheen of the National Guard Association.
Soldiers’ ties
“It’s an odd thing, and it’s something that only soldiers understand,” Goheen said. “When you come home from a mission like this, putting that camaraderie and that experience you enjoyed aside, separating yourself from that, is really quite difficult.
“So a lot of people who say they are going to get out, may not,” Goheen said.
Denise Camarda, 32, of Joliet shares her reservist husband’s frustration with his mobilization, which began last February and has no scheduled end.
Her husband, 29, a Joliet police officer, has told her that he plans to quit once his eight-year commitment expires in May, though orders may keep him deployed beyond then.
Still, she doesn’t know whether his decision is truly final, because Camarda’s father and brother also served in the reserves. The couple were married for three months when he was called up for active duty.
“The last time we discussed it, he wants out–or a transfer into a different unit,” said Camarda, an office assistant who is raising a son. “Deep down inside, I think Jason wants to stay in it. But on the other hand, he wants to make me happy. …. I think the stress [of the decision] really falls down on him.”
