At the peak of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars the national guard and reserve (but mostly guard) made up over 75% of the troops deployed. More national guard units saw more combat than active duty units simply by sheer numbers. I did 8 years and 4 months in the guard and over half that time I was activated for two tours to Afghanistan. I did more overseas time than my active duty time equivalent. National guard units were also consistently being placed in shittier places than active duty units because the active duty commanders didn’t want difficult deployments to potentially get in the way of future promotions. So the guard also took the brunt of the casualties. My first tour was in the second worst area in the country at the time and out of all the US troops (we were with the Polish), all but one was national guard. We set the regional record for longest continuous direct fire firefight at the time and a Polish truck set the record for the largest IED hit (aprox. 550 lbs, all died).
The longest continuous deployment during the Global War on Terrorism was also done by a guard unit. The 34th BCT did 22 months in Iraq.
To say the guard only helps old people and with hurricanes is beyond an understatement. We provided the bulk of the boots on the ground and did the job and big army literally couldn’t do.
At the peak of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars the national guard and reserve (but mostly guard) made up over 75% of the troops deployed. More national guard units saw more combat than active duty units simply by sheer numbers. I did 8 years and 4 months in the guard and over half that time I was activated for two tours to Afghanistan. I did more overseas time than my active duty time equivalent. National guard units were also consistently being placed in shittier places than active duty units because the active duty commanders didn’t want difficult deployments to potentially get in the way of future promotions. So the guard also took the brunt of the casualties. My first tour was in the second worst area in the country at the time and out of all the US troops (we were with the Polish), all but one was national guard. We set the regional record for longest continuous direct fire firefight at the time and a Polish truck set the record for the largest IED hit (aprox. 550 lbs, all died).
The longest continuous deployment during the Global War on Terrorism was also done by a guard unit. The 34th BCT did 22 months in Iraq.
To say the guard only helps old people and with hurricanes is beyond an understatement. We provided the bulk of the boots on the ground and did the job and big army literally couldn’t do.