Why do they deploy national guards to iraq?

Question

doesnt that kinda stretch thin the people on the home front of there is a real emergancy at home?

Answer 1

The Army has  around 500,000 on active duty. The Reserves and Guard have another 500,000+ (around 1.3 million total) Deploying less than 200,000 between Iraq and Afghanistan hardly creates a spread thin regardless of what the press states.

This complaint is like Social Security and Income Tax. Each generation thinks it a new complaint.

The reason is because that is what they are for....to be part of the rotation.

SSG US Army 73-82

Answer 2

you cant trully understand the horrors of war unless you've been there.

I lost my father in iraq, and if anything, it made me more proud of the people there and made me realize that we need them there. Plus on a lighter note , I hope you dont anticipate a national emergency any time soon.

Answer 3

you would have to ask willie clinton why he gutted the military under his watch.   with out enough troops who can the government send?  it is time to bring back the draft don' t you think?  mr  doodles

Answer 4

In the 1990s Bill Clinton reduced the military force by around 30% (got rid of lots of active duty personnel).  I was in the military then, and then, it was too much.  I noticed a sharp rise in the use of the Guard in deployments to Saudi, Panama, Haiti, etc.

Since then, the pace of military deployments hasn't decreased, it has increased... watching CSPAN a few years ago, I distinctly remember one of the military Chiefs of Staff telling congress that the US could no longer support wars in 2 simultaneous theaters of operation (areas of the world) which has always been sort of a standard for how strong our forces should be.

Now, the media is so "anti-war/anti-America/anti-military" that the young people of today's generation generally don't want to commit their time to the cause.  So there aren't enough people to fill the "active duty" roles... so they have to pull "non-active-duty" personnel like the Guard (active-duty means that they are in the military full time... that is what they do... and usually don't have other jobs).

They have stopped teaching TRUE American History in classes (meaning they have taken the sense of patriotism and emotion out of the cirriculum) and are gutting national pride in today's generation.

Although, we still have the 2nd most populous active duty force in the world...

Sigh.  I'll stop ranting now...

Answer 5

The primary job of the National Guard in time of war is to back up and augment the Active Duty forces. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have really stretched the military thin and right now they need every man/woman they can lay their hands on. It is having an effect on the homefront but,  hopefully we will have new leadership in January that will do something about bringing some of the troops home.

Answer 6

Actually sweetie, we discussed this in History.  This nation always has and always will be a frontier nation.  The wars we fought during our beginning years were fought from the people, farmers, ranchers and so on.  We as a nation have always trusted the people, ourselves to get things done. We have a Military yes, but we don't like the ones in power doing it, so we do it. and the national guard is more of what the people fighting is like. That is why you see the rise in things like blackwater and so on, because we trust ourselves to get the job done.