January20, 2007: The U.S. Department of Defense has extended the number of months reservists can be called to active duty. It's no longer limited to 24 months. Until recently, the plan was to call reservists (including National Guard) to active duty for no more than 24 months (per emergency, like the " war on terror".) But that conflict, as many predicted right after September 11, 2001, will be going on for quite a while. However, the old restriction, that reservists could not be called up for more than 24 months at a time, will remain. Another change is that reservists will, in many cases, not be sent overseas for 12 month tours of duty. In the past, that meant active duty for 18 months (six months of training, followed by 12 months overseas.) For reservists, future active duty will be only 12 months, which will include any training time, as well as the time actually spent overseas. The army still wants to maintain a ratio of one year of active duty, followed by four years of reserve (living as a civilian) duty. That "One Out of Five" deal is pretty important for recruiters, as a perception that there will be more active duty than that, will make it a lot more difficult to recruit new people for the reserves and National Guard.