Mike,

Thanks for sharing.  We all have a lot to be proud of with our citizen soldiers.  However, I will share with you one of the downsides of the National Guard.  The Guard is both a military and a political organization and those two roles are not compatible.  When I returned from Vietnam as a combat veteran, I wanted to be a true citizen-soldier to I went to the commanding general of the New Mexico National Guard and requested an assignment (a slot) with his organization.  After putting me off for several weeks, he finally admitted that he could not take me on because he had other Captains in his organization with a lesser date of rank than mine.  No matter that most (if not all) of those guardsmen were actually avoiding the draft and were gone as soon as the Vietnam war ended, it was much more important to the commanding general of the National Guard to support his political ends than to accept a combat-proven soldier into his organization.  That, unfortunately, represents the true picture of the National Guard leadership.  It is not the picture of the rank and file, all of whom are to be admired and celebrated, especially those who have served us in Iraq and Afghanistan.