A confession.

My regard for the National Guard hasn't always been as high as it is now, or as should, perhaps, have been all along. Back in the day I tended to view them as not quite 'my Army.' Most Guardsmen, I figured, were just looking for a way to avoid deployment to the jolly green jungle, although some - a relative few - did make the trip.

Whatever may have been so then certainly isn't now. Given their scale of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, the National Guard today is definitely part of 'my Army.' And I hate what they're doing to them.

Nearly 90 percent of Army National Guard units in the United States are rated “not ready” — largely as a result of shortfalls in billions of dollars’ worth of equipment — jeopardizing their capability to respond to crises at home and abroad, according to a congressional commission that released a preliminary report yesterday on the state of U.S. military reserve forces.

Damn.

Hat tip to The Carpetbagger Report.