A few months ago, there was a story going around that former American servicemen who had more or less retired -- out of regular service, out of reserve training, moved on with their lives -- were getting warned that the military was getting ready to use a rarely-exercised right to put them back in uniform, as part of the so-called Individual Ready Reserve, and that they'd better reenlist early if they wanted to have their choice of assignments. The Army almost instantly denounced this as a rumor stemming from misunderstanding of contingency planning documents, or, well.. something like that.

And then, a couple days ago, they started calling people up from the ready reserve. Evidently, the simple and cold equations describing the finite endurance of the troops in Iraq, and the lack of any forces elsewhere ready for combat, had to be balanced.

Of course, even the Ready Reserve is a finite resource. But people who are worried about a draft, though, shouldn't be. Attempts to fill vacant posts on now-inactive committees, and collect information on potential draftees, surely are just the result of someone doing contingency planning. Or, well... something like that.