Reserve obligations could preserve experience after service

Retired officers form a meaningful reserve only if they can be recalled and kept familiar with wartime responsibilities. The Michael Clapp example suggests that a major war could compel a return even when a short peacetime offer was too disruptive to accept. One proposal would require departing officers and NCOs to spend time in the reserves as the regular establishment shrinks. Another would maintain shadow staffs that rehearse important roles. Such structures could look unproductive in peacetime and provoke persistent budgetary and political arguments. These remain options with difficult trade-offs rather than a settled prescription.