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The official role of the US National Guard is to stop an invasion of the United States or to provide assistance to cops and emergency crews in times of crisis. They aren't normally supposed to go into foreign wars, so they often aren't as well trained as the regular Army or Marines. That said, guardsmen can hold their own in firefights with most foreign armies and are often retired regular soldiers or marines. During wartime, the National Guard can provide a solid stopgap while more people are conscripted into the regular armed forces.

I had to write because of Ramki. He knows nothing of warfare and shows no respect at all for US soldiers. Moreover he called them "the lowest filth of the Earth." Someone has to go into the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, and the deal you make with the country when you do is to go where they tell you and do what they tell you, even if it scares you, even if you disagree with it, and in return we the people won't waste your life needlessly.

The people who enlist in the American armed forces are often the bravest ones in the country, with some of them coming from generations of soldiers, sailors, and marines. Others know that they can't get good educations or jobs or realize their dreams without the support that the military provides, so that make that choice to work themselves out of poverty the dangerous way. Who else would volunteer for a job where you just might get shot in the head, or have an arm or leg blown off?

In school, we all have to read books on the horrors of warfare, some of them from veterans of the War in Vietnam. We have war veterans come into our classes and talk about what they went through. There is no way a large proportion, even 10%, of the people who go into the armed forces don't know there is a great risk to their life and limb.

You can tell that American forces know what they are doing in battles, too. Casualty rates are often 10 to 1 in our favor during battles in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are losing from a political perspective because we don't have a good, solid reason to be in the first country and we don't have enough allies or soldiers in the second country to really take the fight to our enemies and get them out.

Without good political support in either place, American soldiers get relegated to patrolling cities or provinces, or sitting still at checkpoints. This is not something soldiers are trained to do, it is what police are trained to do, and it is not something that you do in a war zone. With patrols going through specific areas, our enemies can predict where and roughly when we will be there, where we will be coming from, and roughly how strong a force we will send. With people waiting at checkpoints, they are sitting ducks for enemy snipers and infantry. This is not how you use an army.

Learn more about this author, Ian Black Trippen.
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