Guard and Reserve in decline?

Am I the only one who sees the tragic, Kafkaesque irony of a president of the United States, who ducked the front-line fighting of the objectionable war of his era by joining a National Guard unit, and now sentences his fellow Guard and Reserve brothers and sisters to fight the objectionable war of their era?

As a former Maine Army National Guardsman, with more than 21 years of total Guard and Reserve service, and a former military newspaper editor and proud winner of the military’s top two journalism awards (Department of Defense’s Thomas Jefferson Award and Department of the Army’s Keith L. Ware Award), I would like to weigh in about what I see as the present administration’s path of destruction and, perhaps, ultimately the road to extinction for the Guard and Reserve programs in this country.

And how ironic, isn’t it, that this deplorable path is brought about by a man who (1) clearly used family privilege to gain admittance into the Guard, (2) clearly flouted Guard attendance rules (pretty obvious even without the actual records), and, most significantly of all, (3) clearly used the Guard system to avoid regular military service, avoid combat and avoid Vietnam? He may never admit to any of this … but I will admit to my “guilt” on Count No. 3. I used the system this way. And so, too, did the thousands and thousands of young men like me who found themselves between the proverbial rock and hard place.

So, yes, I joined the Guard as the best compromise I could find. But, ultimately, I found a meaningful military position for myself (for many years I was editor of the newspaper for Maine Army Guardsmen, produced at Camp Keyes in Augusta) and enjoyed and was proud of the contributions I saw so many Guard units making around the state. For many, many years this state has profited from a designation that made many of our community Guard outfits – specifically, the 133rd in southern Maine and the 262nd in central Maine – engineering battalions with a military task that demands these units be able to construct buildings, roads and bridges in emergency situations.

After completing the obligatory military maneuvers, and the obligatory construction skills testing, Maine Army Guardsmen put the equipment and the skills to practical application for the benefit of the state, paving ball- fields, constructing boat landings in state parks and even putting up new domicile and storage facilities at the formerly known Susan Curtis Crippled Children’s Camp, in Rome, for use by the profoundly handicapped.

I came to understand that many of them ran their own small businesses or worked in small businesses where they were the essential bodies whose places couldn’t be left “vacant” or who couldn’t be replaced with “temps.” Long ago, I came to recognize that a long-term deployment would play havoc with their families and their professional lives.

Sadly, that day has come. It is known that the Guard and Reserve provide a solid 40 percent of the present force in Iraq. Many have been forced to do 24 months.

And, just as Gov. Baldacci announced at the last State of the State address, figures for Maine show that 65 percent of our state’s available Guard and Reserve force have been deployed or are still about to be.

From my perspective we are witnessing an outrage, with hardly a whimper of protest. We are watching, nationwide, as individuals many years past their completed service are being victimized by the Inactive Ready Reserve (IRR) Program, to feed the war machine. For being willing citizen- soldiers and faithfully completing their obligations, individuals (along with their families and employers) are now suffering ridiculously inappropriate hardships, not the least of which is the lack of consideration for their advanced ages and their lack of physical and mental suitability to handle the strain and stress of military service long ago put in their rearview mirrors.

And then there are the present members of the system. They and their families are being asked to live on substantially less than their routine incomes. But worse than that is the unthinkable … which is now happening daily. If you are seriously injured or killed, livelihoods and benefits are taxed way beyond the bounds that comfortably recompense someone who has made such a sacrifice.

And, as nationally syndicated radio talk show host Don Imus has heroically railed about in the past few months, should a Guardsman or Reservist die, the standard policy tops out at a paltry, insulting $12,000.

Please see this for what it is: To provide the manpower for his worldwide combat force, the president of the United States is exploiting the very system he once used to avoid combat in Vietnam. And, if he continues on the path he is on, he will destroy the Guard and Reserve system as we know it. Really, who, in his or her right mind, would join either program right now? If you’re going to serve in combat along with our regular military forces, you might just as well get all the pay, education and health benefits that the regular service people do, and not be the “second- class” military citizens Guard and Reserve members presently are.

The time for action is at hand. “Support the troops” should be something more than an empty platitude plastered on a bumper sticker. Our male and female “news bunnies” have got to stop thinking that the only pertinent question to ask returning Maine service representatives is the completely inane query: “How does it feel to be back home?” If there are any of these well-coiffed, but under-prepared electronic media “personalities” who do happen to think of themselves as “journalists,” they might consider asking some of the important, tough questions we should be all asking about the mistreatment of the individuals in the Guard and Reserve programs.

Presently, our governor, our national and state congressional representatives are very concerned – and rightly so – about proposals that would terminate a very useful military financial office (Limestone), terminate the most efficient and most lauded submarine construction base in the country (Kittery), and cripple another base (leaving Brunswick in the bewildering state of being a base with landing strips but no planes!).

As long as the military in Maine is so dynamically on our radar screens, let’s take in the whole picture and finally, at long last, stand in support of our Guard and Reserve troops, against an administration bent on senselessly killing them and destroying the time-honored system of the citizen-soldier.

Ed Rice, of Orono, is a college English instructor and author of the book “Baseball’s First Indian, Louis Sockalexis: Penobscot Legend, Cleveland Indian.”