At what point does military worship become dangerous?

[DissidentVoice]

156. Not exactly...

By the time I was in the ANG, the "one weekend/two weeks" paradigm was largely untrue. All five branches have come to rely heavily on their Reserve Components.

The Air National Guard is responsible for 100% of defending the airspace of the continental U.S. That's a little more than being a "weekend warrior."

You can hold down a FT job and I'll be the first to say that it was a hell of a lot easier for me in peacetime. For about the past 20 years (or more) being Guard/Reserve is very close to being AD because of all the deployments.

How you hold a civilian job has a lot to do with what degree (if any) of support your employer gives you. Some employers are really generous. Others are not. It's a fallacy that a Reserve component troop can go off to duty, whether for AcDuTra (Active Duty For Training) or actual hostilities, and then come back with everything at their civilian job intact and all is hunky-dory. The law states that your employer must hold a job for you. That does not mean it is the job you held when you left. It can well be the shittiest job the employer has and be the minimum to comply with the law, and the employer can look for other reasons to fire you that they say is unrelated to your service, especially in hardcore right-to-work/employment-at-will states.

I had a former friend (note the emphasis on "former&quot who was a management type. He told me openly he would never hire someone in the Guard or Reserve because it was "too much of a pain in the ass" for him to try and figure out the laws about Reserve component service and civilian employment.

If we had full, national health insurance the health care problem wouldn't exist. In Canada, full-time military and their dependents have to use the military medical services. Reservists are covered like any other Canadian when not on duty, and when on duty they're covered by the Canadian Forces Medical Service. There's no gap (chasm) like there is here.

Of course one should think long and hard before signing your John Hancock on the dotted line, because once you do, your life is not your own, even when you're in the Guard/Reserve. Fortunately I had a recruiter who really stressed that to me.

I personally would not make a good recruiter, because I would be very frank with a potential enlistee. I would tell them openly that you run the risk of getting your ass shot off, you become a cog in a very big wheel and it can be the best thing, worst thing, or somewhere in between that you ever do with your life.