Guard facing largest deployment in 50 years

[sabra]

http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S9831.html?cat=1

Guard facing largest deployment in 50 years

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - If 2,000 Minnesota National Guard Troops receive the deployment notices they are expecting within the next month, it will be the largest single deployment of the state's Guard troops since World War II.

....

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, more than 3,200 Minnesota Army National Guard troops have been called up for full-time service, and nearly two-thirds of those have spent time in Iraq.

....

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was among those concerned. He said there should be limits on how much time Guard personnel are deployed out of the state.

"To ask citizen soldiers to serve as frequently and as intensely as we're asking our Guard to do is a long-term concern," Pawlenty told the Washington Post. "There's going to have to be some accommodation to the Guard so that we don't indefinitely ask them to serve as this level of intensity."

[bluestateguy]

1. This kind of stuff needs to stop

There need to be limits on the deployments of National Guardsmen and an end to stop loss orders. If the military runs out of troops then, oh well, maybe they should look at starting fewer wars.

[Dhalgren]

2. Why does Pawlenty hate America?

[doc03]

3. The National Guard should be used for homeland

defense only as intended. Look at what happened in Ohio last week when one community had so many casualties in one day.

[KyndCulture]

4. There must have been a photo op if Pawlenty said something good.

Oh how I loathe our governor.

[olddad56]

5. I have a co-worker in his mid 50's who got called up...

I guess he could have retired from the Guard with his 30 years already, but didn't.