WH Orders Selected Reserve and Certain IRR of the Armed Forces to Active Duty | Hacker News Reader

WH Orders Selected Reserve and Certain IRR of the Armed Forces to Active Duty

whitehouse.gov

33 pointsremarkEon23 comments

This headline is grossly inaccurate. The White House has not ordered anybody to active duty. "I hereby authorize the Secretary of Defense . . . to order to [them to] active duty." The only thing that has happened is that SECDEF may authorize it. I am not aware of any services asking to do so at this time. This order does nothing more than to put the authority in place, should it be needed.

Additionally, while not inaccurate, "certain IRR" is putting it lightly. This only applies to IRR members who are both:

(1) "in the Individual Ready Reserve mobilization category," which is 100% voluntary under 10 U.S.C. § 10144(b)(1)(A); AND

(2) "designated as essential."

Lastly, even that number is capped: "not more than 450 may be members of the Individual Ready Reserve."

Are you suggesting the White House’s own headline “Ordering the Selected Reserve and Certain Members of the Individual Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active Duty” is grossly inaccurate too?

Isn’t the SECDEF under direct orders from the president who signed this order?

There's a difference between "WH Orders..." and "WH issues policy on 'Ordering...'".

"Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The official press release and HN’s titles say “Ordering”, not “Authorizing” nor “Issuing Policy”.

I don’t know why you’re reading between the lines of one sentence saying that he is only “authorizing the SECDEF” and ignoring the president himself saying this one sentence prior:

> I hereby determine that it is necessary to augment the active Armed Forces […]

The SECDEF is under orders of the president who commands the military and says it is necessary.

Has it honestly not occurred to you that the factually inaccurate HN headline is the one being complained about?

The HN title is “WH Orders Selected Reserve and Certain IRR of the Armed Forces to Active Duty” which I am saying is accurate.

It is not accurate. As a purely factual matter, the White House has done no such thing. And the language you're relying on so heavily is just statutory boilerplate. The "determination" isn't some conspiracy theory veiled directive to SECDEF, it's a checklist item for delegating the authority in the first place. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/12304

ok that makes sense, thanks for the link. the “deem it nessecary” phrase is indeed directly lifted boilerplate from that piece of law to make the authorization but it’s not an order in itself.

Didn't seem like a troll to me. The title is in fact:

Ordering the Selected Reserve and Certain Members of the Individual Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active Duty

I really don't see how you could be so sure what another person "darn well knows"...

I hear you, but I merely copy/pasted the title from the White House press release and slightly truncated it to fit the character limit. I get your point that this isn't like, say, stop loss during OIF. But it's still noteworthy, and it's going to be interesting to think about which MOS's are short such that this policy needs to be explored in the first place. That's honestly why I submitted the link in the first place, because there's a well known/reported recruiting problem in the armed forces right now.

And if I recall correctly you still have to be in the IRR if it was part of your MSO, but you can "opt in" as well. Might be wrong, it's been a while.

strlen("Ordering") < strlen("WH Orders")

You also had the option of using the accepted abbreviation of "SelRes"

Seriously?

Yes, seriously. Your editorializing made the text longer, so it's dishonest to say it was "to fit the character limit."

I guess the next question that comes to mind is, will the Sec of Defense call the order or not?

For SelRes, probably. For IRR MC, almost certainly not.

This 2021 report from the Congressional Research Service indicates that the military "has not made it a priority to fill this mobilization category and currently there are no members assigned to it. Thus, the [12304] authority is effectively limited to members of the Selected Reserve at present."

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL30802

Activating IRR is such a shit move. I wonder if it’s only for certain critical MOS or something. Can’t imagine getting out of the military and having to go back (happened to friends of mine)

Best guess: specialist systems like EW or missiles that are being stretched by Ukraine support. IRR also got raided before Iraq II for linguists and certain intelligence specialists as well.

Pull back some of the Russian language specialists or ELINT analysts specializing in late-Soviet or post-Soviet systems, etc.

"Guess what killer, you're the only expert on Borisoglebsk-2 who doesn't have a drinking problem. Welcome back."

Could see them doing similar for Chinese system specialists or linguists.

Every escalation has a humble beginning

Maximum of 3,000 troops in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-action...

And where Operation Atlantic Resolve is the US activities in response to the conflict in Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Atlantic_Resolve

It's almost like something in political water compels USA to be actively fighting all the time. USA had wasted lived and enormous treasure over the past three decades, and keeps losing.

By "keeps loosing" you're obviously not refering to Lockheed-Martin shareholders:

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/02/24/war-is-great-fo...

Sorry landemva, me reeplying to your post probably contributed to you being at the bottom of the comments.

Welcome to the bottom of the tech brat hierarchy...

I hang out here a lot.

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