Cross Country
What a Long, Strange Trip
Jim Dillinger was eight years removed from his National Guard service when the letter from the Defense Department arrived at his home in Mount Orab, Ohio, in May 2004. It said he was being called to active duty in Iraq because he was still a member of the Individual Ready Reserve--retired soldiers who agree for a time to be eligible to return to active duty. Dillinger thought his service obligation was over. But the Army said he was part of a "stop loss" program instituted after 9/11 that extended active-duty eligibility. So Dillinger dutifully reported, leaving wife Tammy and the three kids, and spent almost a year in Iraq as part of a combat engineer unit.
Oops. Now it turns out Dillinger shouldn't have had to go to Iraq at all. After returning, he began to suspect something was amiss, and months later, a clerical error was discovered; Dillinger should have been discharged in April 1999. In May, his discharge finally came through. And in June, Dillinger received calls from officials at the Army Human Resources Command, who said the Army was sorry for any inconvenience the error might have caused.
With Alex Kingsbury, Kit R. Roane, Chitra Ragavan, Scott Michels and Associated Press
advertisement
