I found this form but it appears to require that I have some kind of “authorization letter” to ask about the individual’s military service.
Is there not a way for me to ask about a particular person whether they are currently in the army unless I am next of kin etc.?
Go here. You’ll need their name, birthdate, and SSN. Alternately, contact one of these offices, in writing:
Is there some reason that you cannot ask the individual in question for his or her DD-214 (assuming that the person is claiming to have been discharged, of course)? This is part of any standard hiring process where the applicant claims military service.
Stranger
Do you want to know if some specific person is currently in the Army? Or are you just wondering generally?
If you want to find out if someone specific is currently serving in the Army, send me a PM with the information you have and I will let you know.
The individual in question is my brother in law, he claims he is in the reserve, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he was discharged years ago and hasn’t told anyone.
If he is in the real reserves in any fashion, he will have an ID card. With an expiration date in the future. Ask to see it. It’ll also have his reserve category on it. Take notes & post it here for somebody to explain.
Note that when folks are fully discharged or separated they remain in some flavor of “inactive reserve” for some number of years. The terminology varies by service and has changed over the years so I don’t know all the current ins and outs.
But the bottom line is essentailly the DoD saying “we know where you live, and the law says we can recall your butt if needed. Meantime, good luck in the civilian job market.” But other than that vague potential obligation, the person has zero contact with the military, zero benefits or obligations, zero anything.
I was in that condition for about 8 years after I resigned my Regular Officer status & went civilian. They never called. I have a vague recollection of then being placed in some even more secondary reserve status until age 50ish. Not 100% sure about that though.
If this guy is a BSer, it’s plausible he’s saying he’s “in the reserves” when he really means “he’s in the (inactive) reserves”, just like everybody else who ever was in the military & not dishonorably discharged.
It’s only slightly less BSey than an 18 year old registering for the draft and then boasting that he’s “subject to a special call-up at any moment.” Yeah, right …
Right, as an officer you would have gone into the IRR (Individual Ready Reserve) which just means you can be called back but you have no ongoing, active service requirements. It’s a way to essentially fulfill your outstanding service obligations without having to do any sort of drilling or participate in the military in any way. If you get called up, you have to serve, though. (Enlisted go into the same thing, but their term of service is based on finishing out whatever obligations they had to the military under their current service contract so it could be shorter for them or even non-existent if they served out the full period of their contract as active duty or something.)
I’m not sure about the secondary status you refer to afterwards. If you resigned your commission and did not retire then you should have been out after your IRR period ended.
Since I collect retirement benefits I can theoretically be recalled any time from here to the end of my life. Current Army policy is if there is a national emergency as declared by the Secretary of the Army then retired officers up to 64 are subject to mobilization, and retired enlisted up to 60 are subject to mobilization. Specialists such as physicians are currently eligible for mobilization at any age.
If you consult a military attorney they will correctly inform you though, that the current age cutoffs for remobilization are just policy based on the fact you don’t really want 65+ year old people in a war unless it’s really really bad–but technically if you’re a retiree all the is required is a change of policy and they can bring you back at any age. But that’s far out WW3 type stuff in most cases.
Some retirees have been recalled but the current system heavily prioritizes retirees who have retired within the last 5 years, there is very little desire to bring back a 60 year old who may have been retired 15+ years.