Reserve Troops Answer Army’s Call to Duty

Here in a cavernous armory, with dentists peering into mouths, nurses sticking needles into arms and lawyers ensuring wills are in order, is where civilian life ends and the countdown to war begins for 18 citizen-soldiers of North Carolina’s 312th Postal Unit.

The platoon of Army reservists -- all of whom volunteered for duty in the Middle East -- is part of the largest troop rotation since World War II in a nation increasingly beholden for security to men and women once dismissed as “weekend warriors.” By spring, two of every five soldiers in Iraq will be reservists or members of the National Guard.

“Without good people on the bench, you can’t win,” said Staff Sgt. Stacey Posey, 38, a Charlotte, N.C., mail carrier and one of the reservists processing for deployment. He added, referring to the key substitute on a basketball team, “We’re the sixth man.”

When word went out that the Charlotte-based 312th Adjutant General Company (Postal) needed 18 reservists for duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom, 25 members volunteered. They were 19 to 48. They included a banking executive, a Wal-Mart shipper, a teacher, a computer technician and several college students. And they were fairly evenly split between men and women. Eight were veterans of Kosovo or Bosnia.

Some volunteered out of patriotism, others pragmatism.

“It’s another experience that will make me more marketable when I graduate,” said Sgt. Larmar Riley, 30, a security officer who is close to earning his college degree.

Others spoke of the chance to get their finances in order with their hazardous-duty pay. Or of the feeling they would let their unit down if they didn’t answer the call.

“They lobbied me like politicians to get a seat on the plane,” said platoon leader Lt. Randolph Brooks, 24, a history major at Morris College in South Carolina. “For me, that’s a great stress relief. I’d much rather have soldiers who want to go, rather than soldiers who are a distraction and have to be consoled on every [family] anniversary.”

Over the next few months, 110,000 soldiers and Marines will head to Iraq and Kuwait to replace 125,000 troops scheduled to come home. Most citizen-soldiers like those in the 312th will have only a few weeks to break apartment leases, arrange for leaves from work, sell or store their cars and make sure their families are cared for.

Staff Sgt. Rob Feamster, 28, a Bank of America executive, spent six months in Kosovo in 2001, nine months in Bosnia in 2003, and is preparing to put his career on hold and say goodbye to his wife and daughter, this time for a year.

He’s no longer sure where the line between being a reservist and an active-duty soldier starts or ends.

“I knew sooner or later we’d be called up, so I volunteered because I wanted to go with the people I ... feel comfortable with,” he said. “I’ve been through this before on other deployments, so the adjustment hasn’t been too overwhelming. Of course, you could ask my wife, and she might not agree.”

In their home in suburban Charlotte, Kelly Feamster, a special-education teacher, said she was prepared for the strain of separation. She’ll cut the grass, fix the car, pay the bills, be both father and mother to 11-month-old Mia. But as a reservist’s wife, she’ll be largely on her own -- without the support system a military base offers spouses of full-time soldiers.

“These deployments make Rob and I closer because we both have to deal with the obstacles of being separated,” she said. “We’re going to get a video camera so he can see Mia growing up. I know he worries about me being alone, just like I worry that something could happen to him.”

Feamster said he probably would end his six-year Army Reserve career when his current enlistment was up. The demands, he said, have become too great.

With the United States seemingly embroiled in endless war and the burden on citizen-soldiers not likely to lessen, military officials worry they may have trouble keeping the reserves and National Guard at full strength. But it is still too early to determine if reenlistments are falling.

Sorting and delivering letters in a war theater may not seem like front-line duty, but along with good chow, it’s a staple of military morale.

It’s also potentially dangerous. More than 70 of the 546 U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq as of Saturday, in both hostile and nonhostile actions, have been members of the Army Reserves or National Guard.

“The possibility of death isn’t something my husband and I talk about,” said Spc. Courtney Blower, 22, an administrator in a security company and the mother of a 14-month-old girl. “Walter and I just try to support each other. Our attitude is, it will be fine and I’ll be back OK.”

In these last days before the 312th reports to Ft. Bragg, N.C., on Monday to brush up on basic military skills, Blower is putting her husband through a home-survival crash course, teaching him all the things he’s never had to do: buy the groceries, pay the bills, take care of the house, feed and bathe Jennifer. He is also an Army reservist, and if he is called to active duty, his sister will become Jennifer’s caretaker.

“This is hard on both of us,” Blower said. “I’m not complaining, though. I knew what I was signing up for when I joined the reserves. I knew one day we’d get deployed. It’s just that I don’t think nonmilitary people understand ... what a strain this is on reserve and Guard families.”

Many soldiers in the Vietnam War entered reluctantly and left embittered, but the men and women of the 312th and the other units that filled the armory appeared to be proud of their service and convinced that the nation supported them.

“Most of my friends are antiwar but not anti-troop,” one reservist said. Everyone said their employers were supportive and had told them their jobs -- and sometimes a promotion -- awaited their return.

Spc. Brandon Ellis, 20, said Wachovia Bank, where he is a teller, intended to pay him his full salary during his year in Iraq or Kuwait (the 312th won’t know where it is headed until it reaches Ft. Bragg). Statesville College also refunded his full tuition when his semester was interrupted by the deployment. He figures by the time he returns, he’ll have saved enough money to pay off his car and marry his fiancee, Stephanie.

“I’ve never been out of the country, except once to Canada, so I look on this as an experience,” he said. “You don’t sign up and figure you’re not going to get deployed. Not anymore. That’s practically impossible today. If we pulled out of Iraq, every terrorist out there would say, ‘America just doesn’t want to fight. We can fight them and win.’ ”

Some reservists questioned whether the United States had done the right thing in attacking Iraq.

Staff Sgt. Christopher Pugh, 34, a software technician, said his father, a retired Marine, supported him in his deployment, “but not the policies behind the war.”

And Staff Sgt. Jimmy Strickland, 40, the manager of a tool and equipment company, said the absence of weapons of mass destruction “makes you wonder what we’re fighting for,” and whether U.S. casualties wouldn’t soon become a political liability for President Bush.

“Right or wrong? Should we have or shouldn’t we have? I don’t get into that too deep, because my obligation is to serve, not question,” said 1st Sgt. Annie Ellis, 48, a Target employee. “I’m going to go over there and do the best I can. That’s all I can do -- besides hoping and praying that every one of us will be all right.”