Thank your very much!

Thanks TMB, I wonder if that included ARNG? Just wondering.

I actually liked it. If I know there is a good reason for it, I like grubbing in the mud, dirt, and the grease, bugs, bug repellent, and humping equipment up and down the mountains. Its called motivation. Now when the bullets fly, some might get demotivated, but then you know that about some people already.

Sounds good to me. When I first joined up, all our AGR were regular army Vietnam vets, and one of them, whom I later went to school with, was a Green Beret. I'd say about half our unit was Vietnam vets.

I'm just using "clueless" as a figure of speech, not a reality. No we aren't sending them that way, and I hope we continue in that regard.

Not two years? One local unit was activated in 2006 not to return until 2008. That's what I remember; maybe I'm brain damaged.

My continued thanks for your participation in the discussion.

There's no doubt - high velocity is a guaranteed ship killer. We proved that to the Japanese in WWII Pacific, with our dive bombers. However, I also remember an engagement by Admiral Thomas L. Sprague's Taffy 1, whose ships were shot thru and thru by armor piercing shells, but his steel was so thin, they never exploded, so damage control kept him afloat long enough to chase the Jap fleet off!

Too bad missiles don't react the same way.

The Russian nuclear submarine Kursk blew the whole front off the boat, and sunk almost immediately killing all but the rear engineering section, and the nuclear propulsion system safeties still managed to trip saving the pile, even though it went to the bottom.

Now if we can't built a surface ship any safer than that Russian junk, we got more problems than just bad planning.

The nation that runs on alternate energy is the one that wins when the oil runs out. The Germans almost learned that, but too late for WWII.

They should at least try Stirling engine propulsion, as it will run on virtually anything, including nuclear. Those new ****ums designs come to mind. I spell - Kilo - Oscar - Charley - Kilo - ums;
K o c k s u m s.

I respect you opinion Major Rod; I just like mine. I have a life outside full time service, but don't mind being called out when need be. It doesn't matter for me anyway. As I am now disabled and retired. I still cheer for the members of all my old units. They are like alma mater to me.

I agree that the department of Labor tries to work with employers, but most soldiers including myself liked our service more that our civilian job. I never had trouble finding a new job; but the Labor department didn't give my employer any choice quite frankly - they had to give me my job back if I wanted it; I just didn't want it back.

Every deployment I saw was at least a Division. I'm not familiar with smaller actions. Some of those units crossed state lines, but were division size none-the-less.

Some of my service was AGR, then TDY in other states, sometimes they used state money to get me paid full time, I had to wear a uniform and do PT, but I was not classified as AGR. This was true in more than one state that I served in. Many units couldn't keep up with the specialist duties in training programs, logistics, or weapons; since I had AGR experience, I was a shoo in for these positions.

I disagree; I think activating a guard or reserve unit for 2 years, every three to five years is a good investment. Something similar has been going on anyway every since 9/11. It sounds like you already agree the system is working now; my idea isn't much different.

There is always an efficiency loss on training, but even the regular forces have that when you look at over all retention data.(except for stop loss) It would be a hell of a lot better than sending large lots of clueless soldiers to the GWOT every time there is a "surge".