Why/How were you called up to active duty service?
For the benefit of readers who do not know my background, I enlisted in the Army in 1995 and served my contract (6 years of active duty) leaving the military in June 2001. All military contracts state that you actually serve 8 years of time and the time not served in active duty, reserves, or national guard status is called Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) time (where you do absolutely nothing). This is essentially so that if there is a war, etc. they can call you up before they draft people.
So your contract is up, don't they have to release you?
Unfortunately that is not true. The president signed an executive order preventing anyone in any the military from leaving so I'm on the hook for essentially as long as they'd like to keep me (don't ask me how that is legal). There are people here with me now who are past the end of their contract and they are still "involuntarily mobilized". A significant portion of the people who have been called up are either quite old (some over 60), have severe medical problems, or are otherwise clearly not fit for duty.
But they lifted this order, why are you still in?
The military "phases out" the people who have been held in so that a bunch of
people don't all get out at once. For some reason, even though the order was
lifted in July, the first batch (which I'm in) isn't allowed to leave until
the last day of October. People whose original date was the day after the
order was lifted, still get to leave on that day though... Strangely enough,
if I had re-enlisted in the military I could be out by now.
Why do you think they called you up?
I was specifically called up because my job classification (Computer Technician) is in short supply in the Army. A significant percentage of people called up have my job classification.
What would've happened if you hadn't show up?
According to a legal officer for the military, the people who don't show up will probably get a Dishonorable Discharge from the military and at least 10 months of jail time. According to the figures we've heard, at least 50% of the people notified did not show up. I personally think that this punishment is unlikely, but time will tell.
What do most people think about being called up?
Most are content that they'll be making decent money (and it is tax free in the
Persian Gulf), but otherwise no one wants to be here (if we did, we would have re-enlisted). I certainly couldn't care less about the pay, so I have a hard time seeing the silver lining on this dark cloud.