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Excellent point Gene.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 11:34
PM
Subject: RE: National Guard
When people denigrate the National Guard service of Bush or
Quayle I always told them to tell Ted Williams that National Guard service
was draft dodging.
Gene
-----Original
Message----- From: owner-KOREAN-WAR-L@listproc.cc.ku.edu [mailto:owner-KOREAN-WAR-L@listproc.cc.ku.edu]On
Behalf Of Mike Yared Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 9:27 AM To: KOREAN-WAR-L@listproc.cc.ku.edu Subject:
National Guard
A Very Long Weekend: The Army National Guard in
Korea, 1950-1953 By William Berebitsky The White Mane Publishing
Company, Inc., P.O. Box 152, Shippensburg, PA 17257. Copyright
1996. mentioned 43 NAtional Guard units. Were they all from the 40th and
45th Infantry Divisions? Mike
from http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030402-50912743.htm National
Guard deployment highest since Korea Audrey Hudson THE WASHINGTON
TIMES Published April 2, 2003
The National
Guard was once thought of as weekend warriors, but is now seeing its
largest deployment since the Korean War with nearly one-quarter of
its troops serving overseas. In addition to new
deployments to Iraq, nearly 100,000 Guard members are serving in
Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, the Sinai Peninsula
and Panama. "They're scattered all over the
place," said John Goheen, spokesman for the National Guard
Association of the United States. "They are not sleeping at home any
more. They have left their jobs and their families to go around the world
on active duty." That leaves more than 300,000 to
guard the home front, and 40,000 have already been alerted that they may
soon mobilize, but most states have plenty of forces available for homeland
security, Mr. Goheen said. Though the war
against terrorism has caused relatively few casualties in total, the two
Guardsmen who have died in it were killed under
high-profile circumstances. Maj. Gregory Stone,
40, of Boise, Idaho, was the first casualty of the National Guard and died
on March 22. He was killed, reportedly by an American Muslim soldier who
is said to have thrown a grenade into his tent at Camp Pennsylvania,
Kuwait. Maj. Stone was assigned to the 124th Air Support Operations
Squadron and was serving as an air-liaison officer with
ground commanders. On Saturday, 24-year-old
Staff Sgt. Jacob L. Frazier of St. Charles, Ill., who was assigned to
the 169th Air Support Operations Squadron, was killed in an ambush in
Afghanistan. As many as 1 million Guard members
and reservists can now be called to serve two years under an
order President Bush signed just days after the September 11 terrorist
attacks. However, Mr. Goheen said the Defense Department wants to avoid
long periods of service overseas. As of March
26, according to the Pentagon, nearly 217,000 Guard members and reservists
have been activated to serve at home and abroad: more than 150,000 Army
National Guard and Army Reserve members, 33,000 Air National Guard and Air
Force Reserve members, nearly 10,000 naval reservists, 20,000
Marine Corps reservists and 4,000 Coast Guard
reservists. A Defense Department spokesman said
deployment is in a "fluid process" and could not give the total number
of Guard members and reservists
deployed overseas. In addition to overseas
duties, 4,000 of New York's 17,000 Guard members and 7,000 militia
are helping to guard bridges, tunnels, train stations, subways,
international airports, nuclear-power facilities and the Canadian border,
spokesman Scott Sandman said. In California,
the National Guard is on its second rotation since the terrorist attacks
guarding such high-profile landmarks as the Golden Gate Bridge and
international airports, Capt. Denise Varner said.
"Their attitudes are still so wonderful, they are so patriotic and believe
[in] what they are doing and not blinking an eye," Capt. Varner
said. When Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge
raised the terrorist alert from elevated (yellow) to high (orange) on
March 17, he urged governors to call in the Guard for extra
protection. Ordinarily, governors call up the
Guard for their states to handle disasters or emergencies, and Mr. Ridge
said he wishes to respect that custom. At least 13
governors have declined to call up their state's Guard
units. Democratic Washington Gov. Gary Locke has
been critical of the administration for not giving his state nearly a
billion dollars he says is needed to fund homeland-security measures, but
said funding is not the reason he declined to deploy troops for
added protection. "I made it very clear we will
spend the money and whatever is needed to take care of security needs
here at home," Mr. Locke said yesterday.
"I'm not reluctant to deploy and cover the costs of everything on a case by
case basis, but given the classified information from the Homeland
Security Department and other federal agencies ... there were no
specific targets of people, places or installations in
Washington."
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