On 22 August 1990, the President of the United States signed Executive order 12727 which implemented, for the first time, the Title 10 US code 673b authority to order to active duty the Selected Reserve of the United States Armed Forces. This gave the Department of Defense authority to activate up to 200,000 Selected Reservists for a period not to exceed 90 days, with the authority to extend that period for an additional 90 days. This authority was further delegated to the Secretary of the Army. This paper analyzes the myriad U.S. Army Reserve personnel management system problems experienced during the activation and partial mobilization of the U.S. Army Reserves in support of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The lessons learned from those operations have been analyzed and the paper discusses not only the problems, but also recommends statutory and regulatory changes necessary in order to preclude a re-occurrence of those same problems in future activations, partial mobilizations and/or mobilizations.