Married to a Reservist, Janet Wright is now coping on half her husband's old salary
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The call-ups have also taken their toll on the communities of Guard members and reservists. A disproportionate number are police officers or fire fighters — the very people whom cities are counting on for homeland security and as first responders. "We have hollowed out our homeland-security force and deployed them around the country and around the world," says California Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher. The call-ups after 9/11 swept up 15% of the Fargo, N.D., police force. Even small losses can have a big impact on cities and states that are staggering under their worst fiscal crises in generations. With three of its 68 police officers deployed, Tukwila, Wash., has had to put members of its crime- prevention team back on patrol and may have to reduce its detective force.
After Vietnam, when the U.S. military felt isolated from the American public, the idea was that the nation would never again go to war without putting its reservists on the line along with active-duty troops. That concept of guaranteeing that a broad spectrum of Americans was part of the nation's combat missions has worked. Reservists logged 2 million days of duty a decade ago; last year the total climbed to 15 million. But lawmakers have begun to wonder about the implications for a future in which military missions that might once have been temporary begin to look permanent. "You have to be realistic as to how much you can continue to ask them to do and how often you can ask them to do it," says worried Congressman John McHugh, the New York Republican who chairs the Armed Services Total Force Subcommittee.
In January, McHugh and members of his panel interviewed reservists on duty in Europe, and what they heard was sobering. The reservists said their status is becoming a liability with employers, and some have begun to omit any mention of their service in their rsums. They complained that their families are not treated like those of active military personnel. When reservists sign up for a second year in Europe, for instance, they have to pay tuition to send their children to schools on military bases, and when their families come to visit, they are not eligible for the free travel afforded to families of active military when space is available on military aircraft.
To many in Congress, the inevitable answer is to increase the number of full-time personnel, an idea the Pentagon has resisted. But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that it was "not a good thing" to rely so heavily on reservists for peacekeeping. "You're going to call people up every other year," he noted, "which isn't what they really sign up for."
Despite all the hardships involved, reservists and their families say service pays in ways that may not be so easy to understand for those who have never had the experience. Monterey Brookman estimates that her physician husband's service in Somalia "probably cost us a million dollars." But, she adds, "we would pay every penny of that because it was, for my husband, worth a million and then some to be fulfilling his mission as a doctor and an American."
When Gerald McIntyre returned home to Waynesboro, Pa., last week after a year of active duty at Fort Lewis, Wash., waiting for him were wife Pam, son Jacob, 6, and a house that is two-thirds the size of their old one. McIntyre is starting to look for work — he left his civilian job so that he could cash in his retirement and profit sharing to pay off the family's debt before going into active duty. Pam quit her job to be home for Jacob. Rather than go out to eat as they used to, Pam and Jacob will share a new routine with Gerald: get the good china out, light the candles and pretend they are at a fancy restaurant. "It's really weird," Pam says, "because even though I feel poor, I feel rich. I feel content. This year has made me stronger."