Old Soldiers Back On Duty

Bob Simon Reports On Former GIs Being Ordered To Suit Up For Iraq

(CBS)  But she’s not alone. Many officers say they were never made aware of that, that no mention is made of it in the enlistment agreements they signed. The Army, which declined a request by 60 Minutes for an interview, counters that the requirement is referred to in the agreements, if ever so obliquely.

"It's a six-digit reference to an Army regulation, that's put in a remark section in these agreements," says Mark Waple, a lawyer who specializes in defending soldiers. "It borders on being a deceptive recruiting practice. I’m not suggesting it was intended that way."

Nevertheless, Waple calls what the Army’s doing now "a backdoor draft." And since June, he’s been getting dozens of calls from officers around the country who are convinced the Army has no right to call them up.

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Todd Parrish was the first to call. He served his four years of active duty in the 1990s as an artillery officer.

Unlike many Ready Reserve soldiers, who say they never knew they had to resign their commissions, Parrish knew, and did.

He believed that legally he was out of the military forever. But last July, Parrish and his wife, Collette, were shocked when he received one of those letters from the Army.

But when he called Army Personnel to tell them a mistake had been made, they seemed to know very little about him. In fact, they told him that he had never done his active duty.

"I said, 'Well, I served active duty. I have the records.' And then I said, 'Do you have my DD-214?,'" says Parrish.

"The DD-214 is the one that says honorable discharge on it. It's a record of everything you've done. And they said, 'No. We do not have that on file. But we can request it.' And I said, 'Request it? You're the Human Resources Command. Shouldn't you already have that before you call somebody to active duty?' They told me, 'Oh, you'll have to report, and we'll work it out from there.'"

Parrish, a veteran, knew that once he reported, he would have "given up all your rights." Says Parrish, "Once you show up, you're gonna go to Iraq, no matter how right you may be."

But should all bets be off now that the country is in a state of emergency?

"I think if they're saying that, then what they're saying is there needs to be a draft. ... Over and over it's told, 'We're an all-volunteer Army. We're an all volunteer armed forces,'" says Parrish's wife, Collette.

"And if it's going to be all volunteer, it needs to be the people that have actually volunteered and want to be there - not the people who served and wanted to go on and be civilians."

Parrish is challenging his orders in federal court, where the Army is now arguing that his resignation should never have been accepted in the first place - that it was a clerical error.

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Rick Howell also thought a mistake had been made when he received his notification last August. He’s 47 and disabled from an accident he suffered in the military.

"I can’t run anymore. If somebody was shooting at me and chasing me I couldn’t run away from them. I can’t, you know, if I lift anything more than 30 or 40 pounds, I literally, the rod in my arm tingles," says Howell.

He joined the Army in 1981, and became a helicopter pilot. He flew along the DMZ in Korea. Finally, in 1997, after almost 16 years of active service, he retired.

"My goal was to move back and get that life that I never had because for 16 years the Army," says Howell. "I mean, I gave the Army my life. Of course, you know, I wanted a family, you know. I wanted to marry someone and to settle down and to have a home."

And so he did. His son was born two months ago. Going back into the Army would be a major inconvenience, to say the least.

But Howell says he’s willing to do it if he can serve in the United States, which he put in the form of a prayer on Thanksgiving this year.

The Army rejected Howell’s offer and sent him a letter, saying his exemption has been disapproved, and he has to report for duty. But Howell intends to keep fighting.

What is he going to do if he has to go to Iraq?

"I don’t have a choice. They’re going to have to come and get me. I mean literally," says Howell. "They’re going to have to come get me. And at that point in time, if they come get me, I don’t have a choice. They’ll have to drag me away and make me go."

They haven't gotten Howell to go yet. Since 60 Minutes broadcast this story last fall, Howell's date to report for duty has been postponed, and he's still waiting to see if he'll get an exemption.

The Army did grant an exemption to the federal agent we called "Mary." And Chief Warrant Officer Margaret Murray, 55, has been released from active duty.

All the other Ready Reservists we interviewed are now serving in Iraq.