Number of active-duty Guard, Reserve drops

At lowest level since before war

March 16, 2006|Robert Burns, Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The ranks of National Guard and Reserve troops on active duty for Iraq and the global fight against terror has fallen to just under 118,000, the lowest level since before the US invasion of Iraq three years ago.

The reduction is a welcome trend for America's citizen-soldiers, who have been called to combat duty in numbers not seen in decades and who were further strained by last year's hurricane relief efforts on the Gulf Coast.

The driving reason for the drop, Pentagon officials say, is that more active-duty combat units like the Army's 4th Infantry Division are returning to Iraq after extensive reorganizations. Guard and Reserve units, the bulk of whom are in Iraq and Afghanistan, were filling more combat positions while the active-duty force was being reconfigured for the kinds of conflicts the Pentagon expects in the years ahead.

The Pentagon says the decline in Guard and Reserve call-ups also reflects that some troops whose specialties make them among the most frequently deployed have served their required time.

Yesterday the Pentagon announced it was sending an additional 700 US troops into Iraq in response to the recent upsurge in sectarian killings and in anticipation of more violence at a time of a Shi'ite holiday.

As of yesterday , the number of Guard and Reserve from across the military who were on active duty had dropped to 117,988. That is the lowest number since the Iraq war began in March 2003. The peak was in April 2003, at 224,528.