Recent thoughts
First, my heart and prayers go out to the victims and the families of the Virginia Tech shooting yesterday, even the shooter's family. My concerns about the aftermath of this incident are probably close to those of other gun owners; the folks who want to further restrict legal gun ownership in this country will do everything they can to exploit this, and every rational, reasonable, logical argument gun owners have will either fall on deaf (ignorant) ears, or we'll be preachin' to the choir. I've been reading over at LawDog, Oscar Poppa, Anarchangel, and Blogomonicon about this, and I think they're much more eloquent about than I am.
On to other things...
I passed the CHL class last month during my State Guard weekend. I got 98% on the written test, and 241 out of 250 pts on the lab... er, shooting. Kept 'em all inside the silhouette, so no friendlies capped. ;)
I've been pondering the whole state guard/militia thing for a while. It started with a conversation between me and Phoenix a month or so ago:
Phoenix: "So what does the State Guard correspond to?"
Me (not quite understanding the question): "Ye olde village militia?"
Phoenix: "No, I mean, Army, Navy, Air Force..."
Me: "Oh, Army!"
That got me to thinking about how similar State Guard duty is to "ye olde village militia." Mainly, there's a lot of marching back and forth, with more marching, and MORE marching. Last month we got lucky and actually got to shoot our guns; I think almost every other time there won't be any. I think one of the main differences is that we only show up one weekend a month, they were supposed to show up every Sunday, after church, on the village commons or town square (at least, that's what the history books teach). We both come from the community, serve when needed locally, take our orders from the governor. Especially here in Texas, we trace back to the village militias that defended the frontier during our early years. I've come to the conclusion that for as much as the National Guard claims similar origins, since the Dick Act of 1903, they are essentially a state-recruitment level for the US Army, especially with the way the NG is being used now. Oh, wait, here it is, from Wikipedia (see above link): "(The National Defense Act of 1916) transformed the militia from individual state forces into a Reserve Component of the U.S. Army- and made the term "National Guard" mandatory." Ok, so I'm not crazy... maybe I am, but I'm not imagining this.
More to come later, now that I've cleared this outta my brain files.
On to other things...
I passed the CHL class last month during my State Guard weekend. I got 98% on the written test, and 241 out of 250 pts on the lab... er, shooting. Kept 'em all inside the silhouette, so no friendlies capped. ;)
I've been pondering the whole state guard/militia thing for a while. It started with a conversation between me and Phoenix a month or so ago:
Phoenix: "So what does the State Guard correspond to?"
Me (not quite understanding the question): "Ye olde village militia?"
Phoenix: "No, I mean, Army, Navy, Air Force..."
Me: "Oh, Army!"
That got me to thinking about how similar State Guard duty is to "ye olde village militia." Mainly, there's a lot of marching back and forth, with more marching, and MORE marching. Last month we got lucky and actually got to shoot our guns; I think almost every other time there won't be any. I think one of the main differences is that we only show up one weekend a month, they were supposed to show up every Sunday, after church, on the village commons or town square (at least, that's what the history books teach). We both come from the community, serve when needed locally, take our orders from the governor. Especially here in Texas, we trace back to the village militias that defended the frontier during our early years. I've come to the conclusion that for as much as the National Guard claims similar origins, since the Dick Act of 1903, they are essentially a state-recruitment level for the US Army, especially with the way the NG is being used now. Oh, wait, here it is, from Wikipedia (see above link): "(The National Defense Act of 1916) transformed the militia from individual state forces into a Reserve Component of the U.S. Army- and made the term "National Guard" mandatory." Ok, so I'm not crazy... maybe I am, but I'm not imagining this.
More to come later, now that I've cleared this outta my brain files.
posted by Mattexian at 7:01 PM
2 Comments:
You have a slight error in your State Guard comment...
There are both Air Farce I mean Force... and Maritime (Navy) components to the Texas State Guard now...
D.J. Baird
ET1, USN (rtd)
You're right, there is a Air Texas State Guard unit, and a newly created Naval unit. (One of our retired Marines requested an immediate transfer when he heard of the creation of the Naval unit.) And some other states have similar groups, but I was thinking of the majority of the State Guard/ State Defense Forces.
Post a Comment
<< Home