Vet files to de-enlist from Guard

PORTLAND – An Army veteran who served five years on active duty has filed to de-enlist from the National Guard, claiming he was tricked into additional service.

Joe Talik signed up with the National Guard six weeks ago after recruiters told him – and his worried mother – that he might be on a list of soldiers the Army was planning to recall for duty in Iraq.

“They made it sound like (the Guard) was a safe haven,” said Talik, 26, who’s working his way through college with two jobs. “I really feel like someone should answer for the deceit.”

The National Guard signed up Talik and 108 other soldiers in Oregon from the Individual Ready Reserve during a recruitment effort in mid-May. The ready reserve is composed of 111,000 soldiers across the nation who have served Army hitches but remain eligible under their military contracts to be called to duty for up to eight years after their service began.

In what appears to be an unprecedented move, National Guard units across the nation are allowing ready reserve enlistees who feel misled by the recent recruiting effort to file papers which, if approved, will void their contracts, said Lt. Col. Richard Guzzetta, chief of the Army National Guard’s recruiting retention force in Crystal City, Va.

“It’s the right thing to do,” he said. “Nobody would want someone to be in the military – especially our military – that didn’t want to be,” Guzzetta said. “It’s a voluntary force. There’s not a draft out there.”

Before heading to one of his two restaurant jobs Friday, Talik stopped by his recruiter’s office in Portland and filed paperwork declaring that he was the victim of “erroneous enlistment.”

Oregon National Guard officials say Talik is one of at least nine ready reserve soldiers who have filed paperwork to void their enlistments.

Guzzetta said the great majority of ready reserve soldiers who signed up for the National Guard in May have no plans to opt out of their contracts – and for good reason.

Early last week, as Guard recruiters warned during their recruiting blitz, the Army announced plans to notify 5,600 members of the ready reserve that they might be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.