GREG, You should not be doing this reluctantly or with a heavy heart. You should be ENTHUSIASTICALLY, CHEERFULLY, WILLFULLY, RESOLVEDLY arming your NG personnel, with the express purpose of simultaneously protecting them from Islamist looney-tunes on jihadist missions and poking a finger in the eye of our control freak mafia federal government.
My $0.02.
I think his “heavy heart” has to do with the deaths of five people who were unable to defend themselves rather than issuing such an order.