National Guard 'Finished'

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.rense.com/general46/natio...rdfinished.htm

National Guard 'Finished'
Stars & Stripes
Letters to the Editor
12-16-3

I'm a soldier in the Missouri National Guard. I'm stationed in Baghdad, Iraq. Had I known five years ago that the National Guard would be part of the occupying force here in Iraq and the rest of the world, I would have told them to stick the contract in their ear.

It's not the conditions that bother me. But since I arrived here in Baghdad via Kuwait, the National Guard has been shafted in the role it plays with the Army. Second is all that we'll ever be with these people.

Before coming here, if I needed extra money I could work a few more hours. Now I receive only about three-fourths of the money needed for rent. There's no way to make extra. It makes it difficult for my wife to survive. Regular Army families can live on base, shop at the post exchange, utilize armed forces banks, contact the Army in case of hardship, and enjoy many other benefits that make their lives easier. My wife is a good hour from any Army base. It would be pointless to drive that far to reap meager benefits just to survive.

Rest and recuperation leave is a joke. Our unit is only allowed to grant leave to maybe two people per day. The first Armored Division has gotten most of their people out already. The National Guard is picking up its absent slots. It has come to our attention that only E-4s and below will get leave. Even then, not all the E-4s will get out before it's time to go home at the rate we're going.

No ETS [Expiration of Term of Service]. Not enough benefits or money to survive. Playing catch up when we return to our jobs. Messed up leave dates. Playing Army in the secondhand spot. Why would anyone ever join? I believe that when the Army finally lets us go home, it will be the proverbial death of the National Guard. The National Guard is finished. I for one will not be reupping.

Spc. John Brents
Baghdad, Iraq

http://www.stripesonline.com/article...&article=19293

[colmurph]

Boo Hoo.......I didn't join the National Guard to go to war, I joined for the extra beer money I could pick up for the one weekend a month and the College Money.

Hey Troop.....Why do you think the Regular Army considers you "Second Best"? Are the National Guard units trained up to Deployment Standards? He!! NO! Do you guys have a positive attitude? Guess not.....

You are probably right. The National Guard is finished! Except for the NG Special Forces Units that performed superbly. It's time to turn over the funding of the State Militia to the individual states and drop all Federal Funding. Let the "National Guard" stay in the states for disaster relief and other state mandated tasks and let the individual states fund it entirely. Give the Army Reserve back all of the Combat Arms Units that were put into the National Guard. Funny thing....not too many Reservists are beefing, just the Nasty Guard.

What can you expect from an outfit that has a "Wet Bar" in the Armory.

[SuperScout]

Appreciate your putting this whiner is his place. Not everybody in the Guard is like this petulant little malcontent, but a serious restructuringof the Guard and the Reserves is long overdue. For example, there are several Guard Armored Divisions, TX, CA, for certain, and the likelihood of an entire Guard tank division being activated, brought up to deployment standards, and sent to fight in an armor environment is highly unlikely. Maintaining these divisions at anything remotely resembling readiness standards is extraordinarily expensive, but undoing these sacred cows will take all the savoir faire that Rumsfeld can bring to the table. I hope he can pull it off.

A note of caution is also in order, considering the source of this mouth breather's discontent: the website is by the original crafter of tinfoil helmets, and has created a conspiracy theory that blames the Bushes for everything from the rise of Nazi Germany to wheat blight in North Dakota, JFK's assassination, why Margaret Truman sang off-key, and the cause of Mao Tse Tung's ingrown toenails.

[melody1181]

Do you know what this guy has been through, what he has witnessed??? I sure don't and maybe he has a reason to whine about it.

[SuperScout]

No, specifically, I don't know what this young whiner has been through, but I do know what combat operations look like, what separation from family feels like, what lousy food tastes like, and what shrapnel sounds like when it enters your body. Perhaps the young lout should have read some history books before enlisting in the Guard, and then he might have learned that most of the load in WWII was carried by National Guard troops that had been federalized and brought into the force structure for the duration of the war. The possibility of a Guard unit being federalized today is even greater than before, so his complaining about his current plight is only ignorance on his earlier part to properly inform himself.

As one of my very able NCO's once told me, "War's hell, but combat's a real MF!" My advice to the whiner is simply, "Suck it up, and move out!"

[melody1181]

As you have prob read, they are having more problems than just combat. There are big problems with pay. My cousin was in the reserves this past year and that was even messed up. I just meant that he may of went through something that was different than norm. Not nes. just the war but maybe addministrative(sp?) crud.

[colmurph]

Don't blame the pay problems on the Army! Blame the pay problems on the lazy bastages that pass for unit technicians in the unit with the pay problems. The "Full Time" technicians in the unit are the ones who submit all the payrolls. If the pay is screwed up it's because their own full timers screwed it up.