Nobody could possibly blame Capt. Jay Ferriola for resigning from the Army Reserve after eight years of service, including four years on active duty. After all, he was a reservist in good standing who had managed to hang on to every appendage God gave him. Why risk it in a godforsaken war that began spiraling out of control hours after it began?

When he resigned in June, Ferriola was fully within his rights as a citizen-soldier who had fulfilled his original obligation to the military. At 31, the New York man was ready for the challenges of civilian life. No thanks, but a career in the military wasn't in the cards as far as he was concerned.

He was upfront about it. In keeping with codes of honor and discipline he's lived by for nearly a decade, Ferriola scrupulously signed and forwarded documents that made his intentions clear. Still, his antenna should've immediately gone up when the military failed to uphold its end of the correspondence by formally acknowledging its loss of a good soldier and his good sense.

Ferriola went about his life, fully convinced his resignation, though undoubtedly not what the Army Reserve wants to hear from a soldier in the prime of life, would at least be respected.

He didn't go AWOL. He didn't fake a medical or psychiatric condition he didn't have. Being a serious person who likes to do things by the book, Ferriola signed a document stating his intention to return to civilian life, having fulfilled his term in the Army Reserve.

As appealing as it may have been at one time, he renounced his career in the military hierarchy. For its part, the Army asked Ferriola to return equipment it said was military property. That should've been the end of that, but it wasn't.

After watching the grim headlines out of Iraq every day, Ferriola must have felt vindicated and more than a little relieved by his decision to leave the Army Reserve when he did.

So imagine Ferriola's surprise when he received orders last week instructing him to report for active duty with the 306th Military Police Battalion in Uniondale, N.Y. The unit, the notice said, would be deployed for an 18-month stint in Iraq.

Since appealing to reason could get a person killed when it comes to dealing with the military, Ferriola did what any smart citizen would do when threatened by an implacable, inflexible enemy with a vast bureaucracy at its disposal: He got himself a lawyer who isn't afraid of television cameras.

Attorney Barry Slotnick, a $600-an-hour litigator, filed suit against the U.S. government on Ferriola's behalf citing involuntary servitude, breach of contract and failure to respect due process.

Suddenly, the Army is having second thoughts about whether Ferriola is worth the hassle. The assistant U.S. attorney in New York asked U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet to hold off on handing down a decision until the Army decides whether to honor his resignation. Judge Sweet wants everyone in his chamber on Monday.

With Slotnick on the case, Ferriola can confidently resume his plans for civilian life.

Unfortunately, the roughly 843 Individual Ready Reserve soldiers who failed to comply with Army orders to suit up for tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq by an Oct. 17 deadline won't be able to thumb their noses at military bureaucrats as easily.

For its part, the Army is trying to avoid the specter of filing hundreds of AWOL charges against soldiers who would rather remain in their civilian lives. Still, it feels it has to do something when an estimated one-third of those soldiers refuse to answer the call.

Though rarely called to active duty, Individual Ready Reserve soldiers can be deployed overseas in the most hostile military theaters. Thanks to a war on terrorism that grows exponentially, the military's hunger for more bodies on the ground is insatiable.

Ferriola's case and the situation involving the reluctant reservists says a lot about the lengths the military will go to keep a few good men. There's a clause in the fine print about one's willingness to die that it takes very seriously.