They are your neighbors, your co-workers, your friends, your family. They are citizen soldiers. Since 2001, 4 out of 5 Guardsmen have been sent overseas in the largest deployment of National Guard since WWII. Over 400 Army National Guard soldiers have died in Iraq, more than quadruple the amount that died in the entire Vietnam War.

The men and women who join the National Guard and Reserve are fully aware of their dual duties, to serve and protect the communities at the home-front and when needed, to go abroad to fight. They are given the same speech as we hear on the television commercials, "One weekend a month, two weeks a year. Earn money for college and protect your local community." They believed their recruiters who told them that they'd never get deployed; that the only way they'd see combat is "if World War III broke out." Some call the war in Iraq, a war of choice whilst others believe it is the battleground of the war on terror, but regardless of how one may view this war in Iraq, everyone can agree that it is not WWIII. It is not the war the National Guard and Reservists were told would be the cause for their deployment to foreign countries.

Now, over 1.3 million US troops have served in Iraq; this includes upwards of 450,000 National Guard and Reservists, surpassing the number of Guard and Reservists that have fought in any other foreign war in this nation's history by hundreds of thousands . For more than half a century, the National Guard's policy regarding mobilization was that Guardsmen would be required to serve no more than one year cumulative on active duty (with no more than six months overseas) for each five years of regular drill. After September 11, 2001, the possible mobilization time was increased to 18 months (with no more than one year overseas). Then it was increased again, to 24 months. That policy was effectively abandoned by the Pentagon in January of 2007 because it's the only way they can continue to redeploy Iraq War veterans/Reservists. The cumulative number of days Guard soldiers called to duty rose from 12.7 million in 2001 to 68.3 million in 2005.

Aside from the obvious problems with deployment, and the length of time they are deployed some other obstacles that soldiers in the National Guard and Reserve face are the following. First, the National Guard, and Reserves are grossly under funded, receiving just 2-3% of the funds from DoD. Second, they lack proper equipment:

1. Portion of total military equipment funding allocated to reserves: 3%
2. Guard units rated 'not ready' in U.S. due to equipment shortfalls: ~90%;
3. Current level of authorized stock of dual-use equipment: 50%;
4. Value of equipment needed to bring Guard units to full readiness: $38 billion;
5. Budgeted by Army to augment Guard equipment, through 2011: $21 billion;
6. Humvee shortage: 22,000;
7. Medium truck shortage: 42,000;
8. Rifle, machine gun, other small arm shortage: 53,000;
9. Night vision device shortage: 264,000;
10. Tactical radio shortage: 50,000.;

As of February 2007, 263 Reservists have been killed in action and 408 soldiers from National Guard have been killed in action. They are your neighbors, they are defenders of your community, yet they are deployed to fight abroad. I just have one question, with nearly 1/3rd of our National Guard and Reserve being deployed abroad, who is going to protect us here at home? Perhaps leaving the civilian population of the US vulnerable is a strategic move as well, or perhaps, the civilians have also been assessed as part of the cost of war. Just a thought.

Sources:

1. Stateline.org
2. The News is Now Public - Volunteer Soldiers Devastated by Iraq Weren't "Asking for It" by Stacy Bannerman AlterNet. Posted March 10, 2007
3. http://korea50.army.mil/history/factsheets/army_reserve.shtml