9,300 reservists to be mobilized over next 12 months

9,300 reservists to be mobilized over next 12 months

By Chris Amos
Staff writer


The Navy Reserve expects to mobilize 9,300 sailors during the next 12 months, according to briefing documents obtained by Navy Times and confirmed by Vice Adm. John G. Cotton, chief of the Navy Reserve.

That figure means that nearly one in three available reservists — not counting the 38,000 who have already been mobilized and the approximately 5,000 listed as not deployable for medical, dental, or other administrative reasons — will mobilize during the next year for deployments ranging from six months to more than one year.


Cotton said he does not believe the rate of mobilizations will exhaust the pool of available reservists; that is because the Navy Reserve’s 26 percent yearly turnover creates a fresh supply of deployable sailors every year, according to Capt. David J. Wray, spokesman for the Navy Reserve.

But most new reservists are prior-service sailors who enter from the active component as already deployable assets. Such sailors who have deployed within their last 12 months on active duty can ask that mobilizations be put off for their first year in the Navy Reserve.

As of Oct. 31, there were 71,300 people serving in the selected reserve, according to Cotton.

Cotton said the number of reservists who will be contacted for possible mobilization will be higher than 9,300. That’s because Navy officials have found that as many as 40 percent of reservists contacted for recent mobilizations could not deploy, despite being listed as deployable by their units.

Cotton said the exact number of reservists who can expect a mobilization call next year is unknown because it is difficult to predict precisely how many sailors who are called will be determined to be deployable.

The Navy Reserve had been authorized by Congress to have as many as 6,200 mobilized reservists throughout the year, a number that does not include a smaller number of reservists who count against active-duty billets or who have been mobilized for 30-day operational deployments to fulfill their annual drilling requirements.

That 6,200 is a number Congress has specifically authorized for the Navy Reserve to bring sailors on full time but not have them count against the active-duty end strength. In the past, the Navy had to do a juggling act to ensure the number of activated reservists did not put the Navy over the end strength authorized by Congress.

Cotton said he anticipated keeping no more than 6,000 reservists mobilized at any given time during the next 12 months.