F-16 strafes N.J. elementary school

[Inch]

Seen, my mistake.

 

[The_Falcon]

My limited contact with Guard soldiers suggests to me that they are probably not as good at fieldcraft and soldier skills as our Res soldiers, but I could be wrong (anybody want to chime in here........dglad?...). USARNG types seem to be universally impressed with the quality of our Res soldiers.

When we (a 48th platoon and 4 QOR) went down to Florida in June to train with the Georgia National Guard, it was quite noticeable the amount of training (or lack there of) that they had. As pbi metion short of Basic training and career courses, they only train approx 36 total days out of the calendar year.  And from what they informed us (I can't say if this is unit specific or a widespread thing), their 2 weeks of summer training usually amounts to 2 weeks on the ranges.  On the rifle range it was quite glaring how all 40 Canadians managed to pass the first time, despite using unfamiliar sights, firing applications that are very unlike are own.  Another thing that caught our attention was the general lack of weapons maintenance.  We helped clean our Coys support weapons and I am not kidding, some of the guns were orange.  Not just little spots but large portions.  They told us the have very little time do perform even basic weapons maintenance and cleaning.  One thing I noted and a few others as well, was the educational level of some of the soldiers, it was not very high.  Some of the O/C's even made light of it, and told us it was fairly common through out the US military.

Now I am not ragging on the USANG, some of the soldiers were quite good at what they did, some having performed active service with the Army or the USMC, they just needed more time to practice and maintain there skill level. (even up here we could use more training time but that is another topic).  The guys we trained with are slated to go to Iraq some time next year, and I hope they get as much work up training as possible, they are going to need it.

 

[Slim]

I would say that my experience with the USANG was very simile to the one above...Great guys to the man (well, not to the man) but very lacking in training and even basic soldiering skills. The one time I deployed with them (in one of their units) it was glaringly obvious that there was a skills and training gap. Also they (their officers and NCO's) were surprised as heck that we had skills like DZ/LZ controller, patrolling, and other lass-obvious skills that cpls just don't get in their army.

We were quite popular (there were three of us) and the battalion commander actually made me his driver for a time!

Good time and a great bunch of guys and gals though. I really enjoyed the ex with them!

Slim

 

[Spr.Earl]

Slim,for the past 3 yrs or so I have trained and worked with the Air National Guard for two weeks nearly every year on the Engineer side and have found them very professional and most have many tours under their belts and nearly all are Ex. Reg. Force i.e. Marines,Army,Air Force,Navy.
They have taught me thing's I never knew and I and others have taught them thing's they never knew.
Over all I have found the U.S. Engineer Air National Guard close too top notch.

All Militaries have their numpties,we have our own.
Human error is a given in the Military wheather we like it or not.

 

[NavyGrunt]

When I worked with the reserve coast guard and navy guys from the states i found them to be of a high calibre as well. Most having civi occupations such as cops,firefighter, medics and former active duty while our reserves were comprised of 16 year old kids and university students...just my experience though.

 

[Spr.Earl]

Very true Aaron,most in the U.S. Reserves and ANG are all Ex Reg and have established civie job's.
With us I think we should have too sign a contract when joining the reserves say for 3yrs?
If you default you go Reg. to finish your contract or buy your way out,which hurts more.

 

[pbi]

When I provided my original response I distinguished between the ARNG (which I know a little about) and the AIRNG (which I know almost nothing about). I think that we are in danger of confusing them again. Where the USRNG and USAR are concerned, I have to side with those posters who have suggested that, soldier for soldier, our Reserve soldier attends organized military training for more days out of the total year, and is probably better at basic skills and in particular in NCO leader training. ARNG and USAR I would suggest have a much broader total range of skills(taking all MOCs together-not soldiers as individuals...) and are familiar with more types of modern equipment than our Res would be. As well they probably benefit from greater use of simulation and distributed learning, but both of these are definitely improving in our Reserve as well.

While a large number of ARNG and USAR have former active time, I'm not certain that we can say "most" are former active duty. Certainly I would say a larger proportion than we have in the Res today (although that seems to be improving).

However, as I also tried to point out, the very high number of ARNG/USAR soldiers deployed on OEF/OIF will change both of these observations and we may be in for a big shock. No time to rest on our laurels!  Cheers.

 

[Rushrules]

;D I heard Dubya flew in and announced "Mission Accomplished" > afterwards. :bullet:

 

[carpediem]

Here is another version of the events:

http://www.avweb.com/news/avmail/188537-1.html

NOTE: this is not my opinion, just thought people would like another information source