[MNJohnnie]

Oh yeah, the whole idea was sold as a “military on a budget” plan. They sold this as a way the politicians could have their “fiscal conservative” cake and and eat their pork too. I may be being overly paranoid but I do think there were those in the Democrat party who saw it also as a way to make it MUCH harder to use the US Military for anything serious ever.

Deploying a Guard unit has a much larger emotional impact on a community then deploying a regular military unit. I think there was a cold political calculation made that that would suit the Boomers ideological outlook just fine. Plus it is a marvelous engine for pork barrel spending since you can hide building a new armory or refurbishing the Guards HQ as “Defense” spending.

[maica]

Also, re the reduction of our armed forces, Clinton/Gore bragged about “reducing the size of the government by x %.” The reductions in manpower were virtually all military. I guess National Guard units became state funded entities, instead of federally funded.