National Guard presence in Iraq

[shrugs]

Does anyone know where I can find a state by state listing of the the National Gurad in Iraq?
I have read that the 256th here in Louisiana has over 3,000 soldiers.

thanks!

[groover]

Try this: http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...oots-guard.htm

[shrugs]

thansks!

A quick glance reveals a lot!~!

[Gary Sisco]

Shrugs -- I'm not exaggerating with this: 2.5% of the little town where I live -- you've been here so you know the place -- is in Iraq as we speak, so much of the NG here has been mobilized to action duty. That's not counting those in Afghanistan -- or still in Bosnia from Clintoid days.

A medical chopper outfit returned from Bosnia during Katrina but hadn't had time to even fully unload and stow their gear when the VT CO sent them off -- quite willingly, I might add -- to N.O., no federal orders. The feds couldn't believe it when they called to give them the order to saddle up and found that they were already there.

"That's not authorized!!!"

"You want us to call them back?" :-)

[shrugs]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Shrugs -- I'm not exaggerating with this: 2.5% of the little town where I live -- you've been here so you know the place -- is in Iraq as we speak, so much of the NG here has been mobilized to action duty. That's not counting those in Afghanistan -- or still in Bosnia from Clintoid days.

A medical chopper outfit returned from Bosnia during Katrina but hadn't had time to even fully unload and stow their gear when the VT CO sent them off -- quite willingly, I might add -- to N.O., no federal orders. The feds couldn't believe it when they called to give them the order to saddle up and found that they were already there.

"That's not authorized!!!"

"You want us to call them back?" :-)

What kind of message does that send to the troops?
And with such a large percentage from one little town....
Where are the supporters? Sucking on some hot coffee and reading the paper or possibly still fast asleep in their warm beds,

[Gary Sisco]

The main message most are getting is to not re-up, or, far as active duty go, not to join the NG, as many would likely have, otherwise.

They've also been sending many middle-aged fathers and mothers (at least from here, they have) and even grandfathers and mothers. Our farrier told me about a friend of his who'd retired from the Guard, but, when they shipped so many out to Iraq and Afghanistan, he thought, Oh, hell, that means there's a hell of a lot of logistics and support work needing to be done right here, so I guess I'll sign up for another hitch to help out til the guys come back.

Wrong. 50 years old, full family to support -- he reports for his first weekend and gets handed orders to Iraq.

The longterm effect of all of this is what's important, albeit hardly discussed. As experienced NCOs get released from active duty, many of those who would have in other circumstances joined the Guard, won't. Why bother if you're going to be sent into combat as a main force unit, right from the get go? Might as well stay active, in that case, if you don't just want to get the hell out while you still can. So, some years down the line, they'll find themselves with an acute shortage of experienced NCOs. They'll have the ranks covered on paper but a green platoon sergeant is stil green, however you look at it, and it's the experienced NCOs that keep a lot of kids alive, much moreso than officers. Officers of the lower ranks, like, say, a platoon Lt. have pretty short lifespans, on average, once combat begins and in any case are often far more green than their senior NCOs, on whom they very much rely. They won't be having many.

The same thing is going to happen, some years out, with officers. Many lower ranking officers getting jerked around today the way they are, are not going to stay in as they normally might have. Which will mean that down the road they are going to have an acute shortage of experienced officers at the major and colonel levels and that will also get a lot of kids killed in future. Like one officer already commented in the press (NYT) in a rare article on the subject, "It's not like you can just go out and buy majors and colonels with combat experience when you need some." That's exactly right. Even in America, there are things that money just can't buy.

These shortages of both experienced NCOs and officers will also be very much felt in the active-duty ranks as well as the NG and reserves. You can promote people and give them their stripes or insignia but if they aren't combat experienced, it's essentially a form of paperwork more than anything else.

Thing is, ten years out when these effects will be felt but unrepairable in any kind of short term.

Another question that's not being at all widely enough asked is: What does it mean when you have to commit essentially all of your reserve forces before shot one has ever been fired? (Clearly, the answer is that *you don't have reserve forces* in that case, whatever they may technically be called. They're not reserves; they're mainforce units by any other name.)

But another issue is the infamous ever-shrinking memory in the US. Ten years out, most won't even remember what's happening today or if they do, they'll just be in an "I told you so" position.

This admin's policies are actually graver threats to the *real* defense of the US than any terrorist outfit could ever become in its wildest dreams (and we'll ignore, for now, the security threats involved with foreign state's owning much of the national debt; China in particular owns enough treasury bonds to have the ability to send the US national economy into freefall if it felt the need, creating more chaos than any realistic military threat they might ever present, which is a possibility I don't take seriously, but you never know what kind of bellicose belligerency is going to erupt, as we can plainly see today).

[shrugs]

You won't catch me in the reserves. Fuck that.

Shit, ten years out I bet most of the flag waivers will have forgotten about the WMD excuse and will have completely convinced themselves we attacked because Sadaam needed to be booted.
Oh wait, that's already happened. And yet they're lying to their children everytime they're asked "Mommy/Daddy why did we go to war?"......

[crawjo]

Question: Is the medical threshold for joining the National Guard any lower than it is for joining the Army, Navy, etc?

[shrugs]

Death Toll Rises for Military Reservists
Associated Press | October 11, 2005
WASHINGTON - The National Guard and Reserves are suffering a strikingly higher share of U.S. casualties in Iraq, their portion of total American military deaths nearly doubling since last year.

Reservists have accounted for one-quarter of all U.S. deaths since the Iraq war began, but the proportion has grown over time. It was 10 percent for the five weeks it took to topple Baghdad in the spring of 2003, and 20 percent for 2004 as a whole.

The trend accelerated this year. For the first nine months of 2005 reservists accounted for 36 percent of U.S. deaths, and for August and September it was 56 percent, according to Pentagon figures.

The Army National Guard, Army Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve accounted for more than half of all U.S. deaths in August and in September - the first time that has happened in consecutive months. The only other month in which it even approached 50 percent was June 2004.

Casualties in Iraq have shifted toward citizen soldiers as their combat role has grown to historic levels. National Guard officials say their soldiers have been sent into combat in Iraq in numbers not previously seen in modern times - far more than were sent to Vietnam, where active-duty troops did the vast majority of the fighting.

Charles Krohn, a former Army deputy chief of public affairs, said the reservists are taking up the slack for the highly stressed active-duty Army.

"Decisions made years earlier made going to war in any significant way impossible without Guard and Reserve participation. But I can't imagine anyone postulated the situation we face today: We don't seem very anxious to bring back the draft and we can't get enough volunteers for a war that is not universally popular," Krohn said.

About 45 percent of all Guard and Reserve deaths since the start of the war - 220 of the almost 500 total - occurred in the first nine months of 2005, according to Pentagon figures. The deadliest month was August, when 49 Guard and Reserve members died.

The mounting casualties among reservists in Iraq has been overshadowed by the attention focused on a rising overall U.S. death toll, now approaching 2,000. It complicates recruiting for the National Guard and Reserve, which often attract people who think of the military reservists' role as something other than front-line combat.

Gone are the days when the National Guard and Reserve served mainly as "rear-area" support, far from the front-line fighting.

In Iraq the front line is everywhere - on rural roads where Guard and Reserve soldiers drive supply trucks, at urban checkpoints, in remote villages and at major supply bases. Some units also have been attached to active-duty units with the specific mission of conducting offensive operations.

The casualties have contributed to what has been the most challenging time for the Guard and Reserve since the military became an all-volunteer force in 1973. In addition to fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and helping keep the peace in the Balkans, the Guard in particular was called to action in large numbers for rescue and relief from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

At one point this year more than half of the combat forces in Iraq were National Guard.

"That's a first," said Army Maj. Les Melnyk, historian for the Pentagon office that manages the Army and Air National Guard. "The Guard can't claim that (level of combat) for World War II or World War I - the other major wars we fought in. Never more than 50 percent of the combat forces were Guard."

At present, of the approximately 152,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, about half are reservists: 49,000 Army National Guard, 22,000 Army Reserve and 4,000 Marine Reserve, according to figures provided by those organizations.

The trend is almost certain to be reversed next year, when the active-duty Army is scheduled to make a proportionally larger contribution to the overall force. The number of National Guard brigades in Iraq, for example, is scheduled to drop next year from seven to two.

Since the Vietnam era, the military has given the Guard and Reserve more vital support functions like military police and engineers, so that any major conflict would involve more than just the active-duty force. Thus it was inevitable that a sizable portion of the force in Iraq would be Guard and Reserve; what has made the Iraq experience so different is the large numbers of reservists getting killed and wounded.

At least 300 soldiers of the National Guard, 78 of the Army Reserve and 93 of the Marine Corps Reserve, have died in the Iraq conflict. The Navy Reserve has lost 13, the Air Force Reserve three and the Air National Guard one. Together that is one-quarter of the total U.S death toll, which stood at 1,947 on Monday, by the Pentagon's count.

Lt. Gen. James Lovelace, the Army's deputy chief of staff for operations, said in an interview that the increased reliance on the Guard and Reserve in 2005 was deliberately planned to allow active-duty units like the 3rd Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division to complete a reorganization before they returned to Iraq.

"It bought us the time we needed," Lovelace said.

Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


What's the "it" that bought them the time? 300 dead people?

[Gary Sisco]

The death rate isn't surprising when you remember the age of lots of these guys. If there was ever a young man's job, it's going off to war. Not enough people in the US know how physically intense that shit is, not just mentally. Hell, just hauling the necessary shit around with you is more than many middle-aged civilians in the US could take without serious exhaustion. Put that together with combat or the constant stress of never knowing when the next sniper's going to strike, or the next bomb go off, and etc. Plus, people can say what they want, but guys their age just don't have the quickness of reflex when needed that young people have. It's just a fact of life as you get older. A lot of those guys, they might as well just wack them when as they walk off the plane, given their age and relative physical shape.

Myself, what I can't believe is the many millions of young people who passively watch the old guys get sent off to war as if nothing's out of the ordinary here. I'd be shamed to the point of suicide if my father or grandfather got orders and I was still hanging out with my buddies on the corner. Apparently they are too narcissistic for shame to be a factor in their lives.

[groover]

There's always a relevant lyric...

When the old men do the fighting and the young men all look on.
And the young girls eat their mothers meat from tubes of plasticon.
Be wary of these my gentle friends of all the skins you breed.
They have a tasty habit - they eat the hands that bleed.