CNN reporting that Nat'l. Guard Deployment Now 13,000.

[spanone]

Hey, wasn't it 12,000 just a day or so ago???? Oh well, what's another thousand or so lives to bu$hco?

~snip~ The Oklahoma City resident is among the 13,000 National Guard troops in Oklahoma, Indiana, Arkansas and an as-yet unspecified state expected to be notified soon that they could be sent to Iraq around the first of next year, military officials say.


http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/07/guard.deployment.ap/index.html

[jumpoffdaplanet]

1. Is there any way governors can protest this?

To deny their guards going overdseas?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. I'd think the very least they could do

would be to publicize if the units are without proper equipment and training. I just hope there isn't a big forest fire or tornado that causes a huge mess. We won't have the Guard to help us.

[dflprincess]

5. Rudy Perpich, then Governor of Minnesota tried in 1990

He was not successful. Perprich's case, which did go to the Supreme Court (Perpich v. Department of Defense) involved his objection to training trips the DOD was making the National Guard take to Central America. Perpich contended that he had the power to veto those trips as the Commander in Chief of the state Gurard.

But, per the article linked below, the door may still be open for a governor to protest the long active duty tours their state Guard is being assigned to.

http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=1&contentId=46055

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Our local unit just came home

There's a small jewelry store on the square that dedicates one of its two windows to photos of the local Guardsmen and women who are deployed. Just recently there was a "Welcome Home" banner for them. I'd hate to think they might be shipped out again so soon after coming home. From the photos, several of them are in their 30s at least, with families. Got to be very hard on their kids.

[PDJane]

4. Hard on their kids,

hard on their family life and their wives in general, hard on their job prospects.......and damn hard on their bodies.

Why is DU never mentioned????

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. Our peace group brought up DU

in a series of letters to the editor and paid advertisements back in 2003, before the war started. We were trying to warn people of the dangers--and the Arkansas Dem/Gazette did a piece on it, saying it was "unfounded information" despite the fact we cited such "unreliable" sources as the Christian Science Monitor. The MSM didn't want to hear about it then, and I daresay they don't want to hear about it now. It's like Agent Orange--the government figures if they pretend it isn't there, they won't have to treat the thousands of soldiers effected by it.