It was well deserved in my experience. Toward the end of my deployment, statistically the most dangerous period due to complacency setting in, we had to take over an AO that the Army had given to reservists for a year. They'd been reporting for months that all was quite, so we were looking forward to an uneventful weeklong left-seat/right-seat transition. They no joke met us going the other way as our convoy moved into the old British airfield they were using as a FOB, and we soon found out why they were so desperate to put distance between us and themselves: everything that could be wrong was wrong. Total indian country, their patrol routes got tighter and tighter as they'd just never return to an area they got attacked, they hadn't left the FOB for a month. Piles of unmarked UXO, serialized weapons hidden in elephant grass... a total nightmare. The first few days we got a lot of direct fire engagement on patrol, which NEVER happened - but the locals quickly figured out that, unlike Army reservists, infantry Marines take that sort of thing personally - and they fell back to the familiar coordinated IED attacks.
In fairness, I can really only speak to the first couple of years of OIF. I separated in January of 2006.
My larger point would be that the function of reservists and National Guardsmen changed dramatically with OEF/OIF, that the mobilization in reserve and guard forces was unprecedented over the last 20 years.
heh, this was in 2005. But I agree with you about the role of the reserve being changed, though I'd characterize it as less "changed" and more "abused". My contract ended soon after yours... er, my active duty contract - they don't really make it clear during the recruiting process that there is a commitment to four more years of "inactive reserve" involved. I got involuntarily recalled twice, didn't bother re-enrolling in college after the second retread - and gave up trying to get reimbursed for the GI Bill failing to handle a problem of the DoD's own making.
