.Guardsmen defend their role in Iraq
National Guard soldiers are used to a certain amount of ribbing from active-duty Army soldiers, who are soldiers full-time. Some Army soldiers see Guardsmen and women as carpenters, cops and store clerks who pick up M-16s and train on occasional weekends, soldiers interviewed yesterday said. Even in Iraq, where citizen soldiers fight side by side with full-time soldiers, the divide can be evident.
"It was literally written on the bathroom walls: 'National Guard sucks, you can't hack the active duty,'" said Spc. Brandon Wilkins, a New Hampshire Army National Guard soldier who was deployed to Iraq in 2004.
But recent Army criticisms of the Guard's service in Iraq went too far, many local Guard soldiers said. A Los Angeles Times article this week said the Army is considering phasing Guard units out of combat roles because some Army officials think active-duty soldiers can do the job better. Most of the Army sources quoted in the article spoke anonymously.
Many guardsmen and women interviewed yesterday were offended that Army officers would say Guard soldiers are too old or out of shape to handle the 125-degree heat in Iraq.
"I would far prefer to go to war with the company that I went with and I have now," said Capt. Ana McKenna, who commands the 744th Transportation Co. out of Hillsboro. McKenna, who went to Iraq with the company in 2004, served as an active duty Army soldier from 1999 to 2001.
"The face of the Guard sometimes can tend to be older, but with that brings a lot more experience and a lot more knowledge,"she said. "They're more mature, they're more knowledgeable about equipment."
Maj. Gen. Kenneth Clark, the adjutant general of the New Hampshire National Guard, bristled at comments about the age of his soldiers.
"If you think older soldiers can't carry the load, then you haven't been out and visiting our soldiers,"he said, adding that he doesn't think "inexperienced young guys full of bravado are better or more likely to make good decisions in combat."
Clark also said accusations that the Guard has been undertrained for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are untrue.
"We don't take people today off the streets of Dover and hand them a gun and say, 'You're on a Humvee,'" he said.
Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, the National Guard has been deployed in numbers not seen since World War II. The Guard reached a high of 50,285 troops in Iraq in March 2005, and there are still 23,000 Guard troops in Iraq today, according to the Times article. In 2004, more than 900 New Hampshire National Guard soldiers were deployed overseas, said Master Sgt. Michael Daigle, a Guard spokesman.
Soldiers in the Army National Guard train one weekend a month and two additional weeks each year. Guard soldiers must meet all the same training and physical fitness standards as full-time Army soldiers, Daigle said. Guard units deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan also receive up to 2½ months of additional training before they go, he said.
Clark and many soldiers interviewed yesterday were put off by Army comments that Guard soldiers in Iraq tended to be "too cautious, overly concerned with casualties, and simply did not have the intensity of training to match the active-duty force," according to the Times article.
"I can't believe they'd make a statement like that," said Sgt. Ryan Murdough of the Henniker Police Department, who was deployed to Iraq with the 744th. "Of course you want to keep your people safe. I don't think you can be too cautious."
Wilkins, like McKenna and many other Guard soldiers, was an active-duty soldier before joining the Guard. He went to Iraq with one of the few Guard units that is considered a traditional combat unit: Charlie Company of the 172nd Mountain Infantry Regiment out of Manchester. Most units in the Guard are support-related: They transport food, repair Humvees, police villages and provide convoy security, among other tasks, but they are not supposed to be on the front lines of war.
Wilkins, 28, worked alongside active-duty units in Iraq, providing security for convoys. The 172nd often outperformed active-duty Army units, Wilkins said; it frequently finished missions two to four hours sooner and was shot at less. He attributes part of the unit's success to its older soldiers.
"They pay better attention, they realize the importance of what's going on," he said. "Especially when the bullets are flying - they've had years of life experience dealing with crises."
Army sources quoted in the Times said frontline combat missions should be left to active-duty soldiers but said the Guard should still be used in combat support roles. But in Iraq, Guard units not meant for frontline action are still being shot at.
"In today's War on Terror, I don't really think there's a front line," said McKenna, whose company transported parts and supplies in Iraq, driving trucks that were often hit by gunfire on roads rigged with bombs. "We faced combat on a daily basis . . . . It was and is the most dangerous job in Iraq."
Daigle and Clark said that if Guard soldiers stop going to war and are used only for state purposes, like disaster relief or peacekeeping missions, the public will become less concerned with the reasons for going to war.
"If you send your neighbors and your brothers and the people that walk next to you every day and live with you, then the war means more to you," Daigle said.
And since the Army made changes in the '70s and '80s to integrate the Guard into combat operations, it now depends on the Guard for combat support units. More than half of the Army's military police companies and most of the civilian affairs units are National Guard units, Daigle said.
"They can't get the job done without the Guard," he said.
Despite the Guard's work in Iraq and Afghanistan, it still hasn't earned respect from many active-duty Army soldiers.
Capt. Shaun Mulholland of the Allenstown Police Department, who was deployed to Iraq in 2003 with a Rhode Island National Guard military police company, said the active-duty Army unit that replaced them "definitely had an attitude." They weren't interested to learn who the local informants were or what Mulholland and others in the company had done to root out insurgents, he said.
Clark was in Washington yesterday talking to lawmakers about bills in Congress that would give the Guard greater presence in the Department of Defense and elevate the commander of the National Guard to a four-star general position from a three-star general position. He's also been fighting efforts to reduce the Guard's overall troop count. He feels it's another example of the Army's lack of respect for the Guard.
"It's not acceptable, and I feel it every day," Clark said.
Concord Monitor
"It was literally written on the bathroom walls: 'National Guard sucks, you can't hack the active duty,'" said Spc. Brandon Wilkins, a New Hampshire Army National Guard soldier who was deployed to Iraq in 2004.
But recent Army criticisms of the Guard's service in Iraq went too far, many local Guard soldiers said. A Los Angeles Times article this week said the Army is considering phasing Guard units out of combat roles because some Army officials think active-duty soldiers can do the job better. Most of the Army sources quoted in the article spoke anonymously.
Many guardsmen and women interviewed yesterday were offended that Army officers would say Guard soldiers are too old or out of shape to handle the 125-degree heat in Iraq.
"I would far prefer to go to war with the company that I went with and I have now," said Capt. Ana McKenna, who commands the 744th Transportation Co. out of Hillsboro. McKenna, who went to Iraq with the company in 2004, served as an active duty Army soldier from 1999 to 2001.
"The face of the Guard sometimes can tend to be older, but with that brings a lot more experience and a lot more knowledge,"she said. "They're more mature, they're more knowledgeable about equipment."
Maj. Gen. Kenneth Clark, the adjutant general of the New Hampshire National Guard, bristled at comments about the age of his soldiers.
"If you think older soldiers can't carry the load, then you haven't been out and visiting our soldiers,"he said, adding that he doesn't think "inexperienced young guys full of bravado are better or more likely to make good decisions in combat."
Clark also said accusations that the Guard has been undertrained for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are untrue.
"We don't take people today off the streets of Dover and hand them a gun and say, 'You're on a Humvee,'" he said.
Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, the National Guard has been deployed in numbers not seen since World War II. The Guard reached a high of 50,285 troops in Iraq in March 2005, and there are still 23,000 Guard troops in Iraq today, according to the Times article. In 2004, more than 900 New Hampshire National Guard soldiers were deployed overseas, said Master Sgt. Michael Daigle, a Guard spokesman.
Soldiers in the Army National Guard train one weekend a month and two additional weeks each year. Guard soldiers must meet all the same training and physical fitness standards as full-time Army soldiers, Daigle said. Guard units deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan also receive up to 2½ months of additional training before they go, he said.
Clark and many soldiers interviewed yesterday were put off by Army comments that Guard soldiers in Iraq tended to be "too cautious, overly concerned with casualties, and simply did not have the intensity of training to match the active-duty force," according to the Times article.
"I can't believe they'd make a statement like that," said Sgt. Ryan Murdough of the Henniker Police Department, who was deployed to Iraq with the 744th. "Of course you want to keep your people safe. I don't think you can be too cautious."
Wilkins, like McKenna and many other Guard soldiers, was an active-duty soldier before joining the Guard. He went to Iraq with one of the few Guard units that is considered a traditional combat unit: Charlie Company of the 172nd Mountain Infantry Regiment out of Manchester. Most units in the Guard are support-related: They transport food, repair Humvees, police villages and provide convoy security, among other tasks, but they are not supposed to be on the front lines of war.
Wilkins, 28, worked alongside active-duty units in Iraq, providing security for convoys. The 172nd often outperformed active-duty Army units, Wilkins said; it frequently finished missions two to four hours sooner and was shot at less. He attributes part of the unit's success to its older soldiers.
"They pay better attention, they realize the importance of what's going on," he said. "Especially when the bullets are flying - they've had years of life experience dealing with crises."
Army sources quoted in the Times said frontline combat missions should be left to active-duty soldiers but said the Guard should still be used in combat support roles. But in Iraq, Guard units not meant for frontline action are still being shot at.
"In today's War on Terror, I don't really think there's a front line," said McKenna, whose company transported parts and supplies in Iraq, driving trucks that were often hit by gunfire on roads rigged with bombs. "We faced combat on a daily basis . . . . It was and is the most dangerous job in Iraq."
Daigle and Clark said that if Guard soldiers stop going to war and are used only for state purposes, like disaster relief or peacekeeping missions, the public will become less concerned with the reasons for going to war.
"If you send your neighbors and your brothers and the people that walk next to you every day and live with you, then the war means more to you," Daigle said.
And since the Army made changes in the '70s and '80s to integrate the Guard into combat operations, it now depends on the Guard for combat support units. More than half of the Army's military police companies and most of the civilian affairs units are National Guard units, Daigle said.
"They can't get the job done without the Guard," he said.
Despite the Guard's work in Iraq and Afghanistan, it still hasn't earned respect from many active-duty Army soldiers.
Capt. Shaun Mulholland of the Allenstown Police Department, who was deployed to Iraq in 2003 with a Rhode Island National Guard military police company, said the active-duty Army unit that replaced them "definitely had an attitude." They weren't interested to learn who the local informants were or what Mulholland and others in the company had done to root out insurgents, he said.
Clark was in Washington yesterday talking to lawmakers about bills in Congress that would give the Guard greater presence in the Department of Defense and elevate the commander of the National Guard to a four-star general position from a three-star general position. He's also been fighting efforts to reduce the Guard's overall troop count. He feels it's another example of the Army's lack of respect for the Guard.
"It's not acceptable, and I feel it every day," Clark said.
Concord Monitor
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