Ahhh, the UMR, or Unit Manning Roster. It is the ride-or-die metric by which a unit (particularly a Reserve or National Guard unit) lives by.

I’ve mentioned the UMR in the past, but as a summary, it reflects recruiting and retention of a unit based off the amount of population in the region of its “recruiting footprint”. If you live in an area with a large population, there should always be enough people willing to join the organization to keep it viable. If people aren’t joining the organization, and it cannot sustain itself, then it will get closed down, or “deactivated” and it’s “colors” (the units official flags and emblems) will be “cased”.

In Active Duty units this isn’t a big deal since people join from all over the country and go where they are needed: you may join in Texas, but if they need you in Alaska, that’s where you go. Units get their numbers based on what Big Army says. But the funny thing about Reserve and National Guard units as that they are local, and become local community pillars, and it is very common to find multiple different family members serving in a unit over the course of generations.

The unit I’m in now has a high percentage of expecting females (almost as if a bunch of people in the unit all came back from a deployment a few months ago, weird) and if the likelihood of family involvement stays consistent, plans are already being made for them 18 years out.