Ballad of Balad






I noticed the new Damn Few video rags on the National Guard. Some local Guard infantry units did tours in Afghanistan and lost some men there. While I understand the sentiment re: professionalism / skills and NG who have never deployed, it's a bit too soon for ragging on them in my state. When you shed blood for my country, I don't really give a rat's ass how regular you are.

Certainly I have a different kind of respect for regular infantry and special ops. They deserve it. Even so, a militiaman who volunteers to pick up a rifle and go out to meet a lethal enemy deserves respect for his courage.

While it's true that the Revolution would have been lost without the regulars of the Continental Army, it seems strange to me that a nation that was born at Lexington and Concord cannot muster any respect for its current Minute Men.

2 comments:

Grim said...

I don't think they were ragging on the Nasty Girls. It was just the regular mockery of interservice rivalry. You notice they let him drink with them, and demanded to know where he thought he was going when he got up to leave. (To run Google, at that.)

I spent some time in Iraq with a unit of regulars who got replaced by an NG unit. There was a sea change in culture, but those guys got the job done in their own way. They are also soldiers, and their civilian skills were actually quite helpful in a lot of the counterinsurgency efforts.

They did shoot a lot of clearing barrels, though. :)

Tom said...

Well, maybe that's all it is, then.

And the barrels probably deserved it. ;)