If you've been paying attention to the national news media over the past couple of days, then you've probably already seen the picture above, and you know what it's all about. If not, allow me to enlighten you.
The picture shows members of the Texas National Guard arriving in Illinois, and was the lead-in for a story about how six Guardsmen from Texas were sent home from their deployment to Illinois for "failure to meet mission standards." That was all of the information given; the exact reason why they were sent home was never stated.
If you have any kind of military experience as I do (or any common sense at all), then all you have to do is take one look at the picture and you know why they were sent home right away. When I saw this picture for the first time my immediate response was, "How the fuck are these fat assholes still in the Guard?" Then I remembered that it was the National Guard, and that answered my question right away.
I'm guessing that the "mission standards" the article referred to are the weight and fitness standards for the National Guard. Both the Reserves and the National Guard are required to meet the same fitness and weight standards as the regular active duty forces, and one look at this picture tells you that at least three of these guys are WAY over the weight limit. And to be honest, I'm not at all surprised. (In fairness to the fat boys in the picture, the article never identified them as the six men that were sent home, but I have ten bucks that says they were.)
When I was stationed at Langley AFB Va for the last 8 years of my service, I spent 2 years as the Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge of the Training Section, and one of my duties was that of the Unit IMA Coordinator. IMA stands for "Individual Mobilization Augmentee," which is part of the Air Force Reserves. The members of the IMA program were made up of two types of people - those who had served at least 4 years in the active forces and knew what it was all about, or those who had never served on active duty and were doing this as a spare time gig. The IMAs were required to perform two weeks of active duty service once a year, and as the Unit IMA Coordinator I was the one who scheduled them and assigned them to a flight for duty. I was also the one who processed them in and out of the squadron, which means I was the one who had to make sure their uniforms were up to date and correctly worn, and that they were meeting USAF Fitness and Weight Standards.
Which means the first thing I did when they got to my office was to take them to the Orderly Room and have them step on the scales.
With the folks who had served on active duty this was hardly ever a problem. I think I sent one, maybe two of them home because they were overweight, but with the others who had no active service in their background it was another thing entirely. I sent at least 50% of them home immediately because they were WAY overweight, with a letter following them telling them that if they failed to meet the weight standards the next time they reported for duty, they would be discharged from the program. I ended up discharging six of them for this reason in the 2 years I had this duty.
This brings to light the main reason why I have very little respect for the Reserves, and absolutely NO respect for the National Guard. Discipline in reserve units is extremely lax compared to the active forces, with it being almost non-existent in National Guard units. When I was in the Gulf during the Gulf War, we had about two dozen Reservists assigned to my unit, and all they did was bitch and complain about how "this isn't what I signed up for" and "I didn't sign up for this shit" and "I'm losing so much money by being over here!" One of them was so bad that I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and told him that if he didn't STFU I was gonna shove my GAU (rifle) up his ass and blow his brains out. At the end of the shift I told the Shift Leader NOT to assign this asshole to me again and told him why, and when the Reservist came to complain about me the Shift Leader told him to STFU and go away.
And the National Guard is worse than the Reserves in every aspect. All National Guard units are controlled by their individual state governors and NOT the Department of War. The only time the Guard comes under the control of the Department of War is when the President federalizes them as he did before sending the Guard into Oregon and Illinois. They have the same regulations and requirements as the regular active duty forces and are supposed to follow them, and there are active duty military members assigned to the units to make sure this happens. But it doesn't, and since I'm not a member of the National Guard I can't tell you why this happens. But one look at that picture above tells you that it does.
Am I being too hard on the Reserves and National Guard? One might think so, but I base my opinions and lack of respect on my personal experience. Like I said, there are some really great folks in both organizations, but they're the exception rather than the rule.
And don't even get me started on the state militia, the South Carolina State Guard. That's for another day and another blog entry.
