Maybe when your boyfriend was discharged he was transferred to the Marine Reserves? You can be in the Individual Reserve and never have to go to a meeting, etc.

that was for someone on active duty. I think the pink one might have indicated a reserve status, although I'm not sure.

...was less than his legal "military/service obligation" which has been changed over time by congress (6-years when I enlisted in 1984, and now I think it is 8-years).

So if you enlisted for 4-years, during the period of the 6-year obligation, after you completed that 4-year term you would be issued an ID for the Ready Reserve (RR) for the remaining 2-years. During that time you could be re-called in the event of a national emergency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_Reserve

The RR is different than either the National Guard (State) or Reserves (National).

(IRR = individual ready reserve)

I got out of the army on 31 OCT 2007, started a civilian job, bought a house, and my wife was pregnant with our first child - all within about 4 months. Life was going great for me and in June 2008, I got a certified letter from the DOA calling me to active duty for “400 days, unless extended”. I was to report to Fort Benning in September for readiness training and subsequent deployment to Iraq.

That event flipped a switch in my head and I went totally off-the-rails crazy and it was the start of my PTSD getting kind of serious.

I ended up not getting deployed as I think I scared the crap out of them as I would call the office handling IRR recalls daily and rant on the phone about murdering Iraqis, asking them if they thought that I hadn’t killed enough Iraqis for the nation when I was in Iraq in 2004, and eventually I told them that if they were going to send me to Iraq that I’d go to the local recruiting station, shoot myself, and make a scene. I was dead serious (pun not intended, but it sure works!), but I was never planning on shooting anyone else. I might have issues with suicide, but even in my craziest of states I’ve never thought of hurting anyone else.

Anyways, I expected the cops to come to my house and take me away, but that didn’t happen. The IRR people kept trying to call me and I wouldn’t answer the phone. The next morning I got a handwritten note overnighted to me from some 0-6 telling me to get psychiatric help and giving me a certificate of honorable discharge!

I’m almost certain that the recordings they have of my calls were probably used for training to demonstrate how to (or how not to) handle a crazy vet getting ready to face recall to active duty.