I was in the reserve by 9/11 and our (Marine) unit didn't hear a peep until about November, 2002 if I recall. We were all told get your affairs in order. I was in nursing school, to graduate in May, 2003. I told my school what was going on, they said that if I did all of my last semester's clinical time over the Christmas break they would allow me to email my assignments.
January rolls around, the unit gets activates. About 60% went to Pendleton, and half of those were in the initial push in Iraq. 38% went to Lejeune and half of those went overseas. The other 2% were activated, but stayed at home. That was me. So we PT'd for half the day and went home around 1500.
My only deployment wasn't until the fall of 2004, and only 90 days. You know how many times I tried to get orders? A hundred billion times. I kept getting told "if we need you, we'll call you."
Now, I did did some TDY orders for this and that and did some cool things but nothing more in the ME.
