February2, 2007:
Confronted with what appears to be long term peacekeeping and national
reconstruction tasks, the United States is looking for ways to recruit enough
people who are qualified for this kind of work. One effort is to form a
Civilian Reserve Corps of people with skills useful in reconstruction projects,
and willing to go overseas for a while to do just that. This would be in
addition to the current U.S. Army Civil Affairs units. Most of these Civil
Affairs troops are reservists, and the army has its people fully committed to
Iraq and Afghanistan operations. Moreover, there are some areas where American
troops would not be welcome, but American civilians would be. Such a "reserve"
has already been implemented, sort of, as the U.S. government seeks out people
with language skills to help out in the war on terror. A Civilian Reserve Corps
has also been proposed for people skilled in dealing Cyber War situations. Any
Civilian Reserve Corps organization would involve finding, screening and then
maintaining contact with qualified people. Some sort of payment or tax break
would be required to keep the "reservists" ready to respond to a call to duty.
Believe it when you see it, but the idea keeps coming up.