We can always count on them to be on the ball.
A New York soldier thought he had done his duty battling America’s enemies overseas after losing the hearing in his left ear and injuring a knee.
But Uncle Sam isn’t finished with James Raymond, yet.
Now he’s headed to Iraq.
“I thought it was a joke,” said Raymond, who lives in suburban Rochester.
Raymond, 26, suffered permanent partial hearing loss – he says from friendly fire – while fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2003. He later hurt his knee before getting an honorable discharge in September 2004.
But the Army recently sent papers to the former specialist with the rugged 10th Mountain Division saying it needed him to saddle up and report to Fort Benning, Ga., on May 18 for medical and mental evaluation.
God damn, America.
OK, this is really funny. I’m sure that you were intending this just to be a picture of some random journalist looking person, but that happens to be my cousin. It is pretty funny to see him on your blog.
And actually, truth be told, he is shooting video for John Edwards in that picture and not part of the news media at all.
All he has to do is claim to be an atheist. It worked for that one guy.
Or gay! They take convicted felons now, but not gays.
I’d give my left nut for there to be an editor or a reporter who, after getting a story about an IRR recall, would bother to call someone in the military human resources arena.
There are quite a few steps between “orders to IRR muster” and “going to Iraq”. All that SPC Raymond has received are IRR muster orders. He, and probably hundreds of others, got the same orders and most will report to Ft. Benning where they will go through a physical. Now, if SPC Raymond is as broken as he claims (and if he tells the doc that he thinks he’ll be a danger to other Soldiers it’ll probably work) then I’d doubt he’ll be cleared and he’ll find himself medically discharged.
Now, assuming he isn’t a dumb SPC, he’ll file for a deferrment. He’ll need to contact Human Resources Command and provide them with the medical documents he’s gotten from the VA and any civilian doctors that show that he’s suffered X amount of hearing loss and that it is serious enough to impact his ability to serve. However, I doubt he’ll do that since it appears, from this article, that he’s contacted everyone EXCEPT the people he needs to contact (his state rep found out about this through an inmate?!?)
He later hurt his knee before getting an honorable discharge in September 2004.
Doesn’t that count? He’s already been discharged.
“Doesn’t that count? He’s already been discharged.”
No. It doesn’t.
He was discharged from the Active Component back in 2004, however he would still have the remainder of his 8 year service obligation.
For those who are not familiar with how military enlistments work, when someone joins the military they incur an 8 year service obligation where they must remain affiliated with some branch of the military for that 8 year period. Usually, when someone joins the Active or Reserve components they will enlist for X number of years, and after that period of service they are discharged from the Active or the Reserve and assigned to the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) for the remainder of the 8 year statutory obligation.
This was all explained to SPC Raymond when he originally left the Active Component (in service recruiters from the National Guard and the Army Reserve, as well as the retention NCO all do exit interviews with seperating Soldiers explaining his options as a member of the IRR). Also as a member of the IRR he still receives mailings Human Resources Command (HRC) updating himm on his retirement status. Finally, National Guard and Army Reserve recruiters are required to contact IRR members to do two things: make sure their contact info is correct and to see if they’d be interested in volunteering to leave the IRR and return to a Reserve of Guard unit. Hell, if he lived in upstate NY that whole time there is a decent chance I know the people who attempted to contact him. I might have even sent him a letter during one of my IRR mailings while I was a recruiter.
If SPC Raymond thought that he was completely out of the service he was being willfully ignorant and activly avoiding knowledge about his own life. Since he obviously received his muster orders, HRC obviously had good contact information on him, which means that he was aware that he still had an obligation to the Army. As I’d said earlier, if his hearing loss is as severe as he claims it is, then he needs to be pursuing any number of possible deferments or exemptions instead of having congresspeople intervening on his behalf after getting a letter from an prisoner.
As luck would have it, yesterday evening I had a conversation with the husband of a co-worker of my wife who happens to be in the IRR. He had recently received muster orders as well ordering him to report to a local Army Reserve Hospital Unit for a physical. He and his wife had some questions (what is going on? Will he be deployed? etc). I spoke with a retention NCO I know and yes, this is a routine IRR muster which they have done annually for the past couple years. Primarily they’re making sure these Soldiers are still physically qualified, and they’re going to see if any of them are interested in volunteering to come out of the IRR and into a Reserve unit. There is no one being involuntairly mobilized.
Barring evidence to the contrary I think that SPC Raymond is simply raising a stink for the sake of publicity. And the NY Post has been complicit in that because they couldn’t be bothered to 411 the local Reserve Center.