🚀 go-pugleaf

klaatu (klaatu@clark.net) wrote:
: > The Guard is not the Reserve.  Its a standing army, be it a federal army
: > or a state army - but its still an army.

: Sorry, but the Guard is not full-time. That makes it a Reserve, and not
: a full-time Army.

Negative, parts of the Guard are Full Time.  In fact, several of my
buddies are Active Duty Military, Guard Personnel.  They have Green ID
cards, are members of the guard,report for drill, are not traditional AGR 
and work for various Federal Agencies (ATF, DEA, etc) just barely skating
that thin line of Posse Commitatus.  

In fact, ever unit in the guard has a number of personnel that are full
time.  And members of the guard can elect to be full time as well,
positions depending.  Largely being M-Day in the guard is by choice, the
option to be full time is open to all members of the guard.

 : Actually, one of the functions of any militia would be the
: organizational aspects, even though for the unorganized militia, those
: organizational aspects are pretty much limited by "militia philosophy"
: to a particular county or neighborhood. The National Guard was and is
: the Organized Militia of a State. I am somewhat worried by the fact that
: it (along with the Coast Guard) is the primary source for
: rapid-mobilization personnel in times of war; I'd feel better if the
: National Guard/Coast Guard was the primary source only for in-country
: mobilization needs and not the first to be shipped out. _That_ aspect of
: the increasing Federalization of the NG/CG has me very worried indeed.

Me too.  Particularly the stepped down Battle Focus of training.  Too much
time spent pushing units around for the draw down and too much time
playing peace keeper here and there is tearing down mobilization Service
Wide, IMHO.  The US Military has one job, close with the enemy and kill
him - To fight and win wars.  Anything else is a distraction and weakens
readiness.

: > Time broke the US resolve.  Any war, dragged on for an indefinite period
: > of time, with no definable goals, and a limited subset of actionable
: > fronts that don't effect an enemies supply lines and moral resolve will be
: > lost.  War is not about taking land, its about crushing your enemies will
: > to fight.  If you take his will, you've won the war.

: Hmm, of course that goes without saying. Actually I suspect that unrest
: and dissension at home (much of it in reality over the fact that we had
: no real strategy to win in Vietnam, JMHO) had a lot to do with sapping
: our will to fight-and-win. We could probably have crushed the North
: Vietnamese with reasonable speed had the go-ahead been given. We lost
: that war at home more than anyplace else, again Just My Humble Opinion.

Yep.  And the NV were'nt stupid, they took advanatge of that and wore us
down with unconventional warfare.  We learned alot of lessons from that
experience, I hope we don't have to learn them again.

M. Shinn