Guess it wasn't a hoax after all

Strains from Iraq and Afghanistan prompt Army to dip deeper into reserve pool

Army officials said Tuesday that about 5,600 former soldiers mostly people who recently left the service and have up-to-date skills in military policing, engineering, logistics, medicine or transportation will be assigned to National Guard and Reserve units starting in July.

Many of them will find themselves in Iraq by the end of the year.

They are in a rarely used pool of reservists known as the Individual Ready Reserve. They are distinct from the National Guard and Reserve because they do not perform regularly scheduled training and are not paid as reservists, but they are eligible to be recalled in an emergency because their active duty hitches did not complete the service obligation in their enlistment contracts.

The Army planned to announce details of the call-up on Wednesday.

It is the first sizable activation of the Individual Ready Reserve since the 1991 Gulf War, though several hundred people have voluntarily returned to service since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.