No. I've spent the last 20 years of my life in the Active Duty and National Guard. I've spent the last 7 years in the Air National Guard. Since 9/11 I have been bouncing back and forth between Federal and State authority depending on what my assigned role is. I am very familiar with what my chain of command is depending on what role I am filling. When a person joins the National Guard, he raises his right hand and swears an oath to the Governor of the state he works for. That is because the Governor is his commander. And the Governor must give the DoD the authority to assume command of his National Guard forces. That is why, to this very minute, all the Guardsmen working in New Orleans full UNDER the authority of state officials including local policemen. That's just the way it is.
Thanks that's a big help. Question: Could the President or someone else have had the authority to override the Gov in this preparation if it was deemed inadequate? Do they have no choice but to sit back and say 'everyone is gonna die and we can't so a thing about it' when they realize that the Gov is incompetent? These are the arguments I am hearing from people, that they should have stepped in. And no excuses for being left out of the loop or NO officials improperly informing them. One compared it to Enron's President that couldn't claim ignorance. I just want to know the real facts about how this operates so I can have this argument.