National Guard units in 31 states say four years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan have left them with 60% or less of their authorized equipment, a USA TODAY review found.

Eighteen of those 31 states report having half or fewer of the vehicles, aircraft, radios, weapons and other items they are authorized to have for home-front uses, the 50-state review found.

CHART: How ready is your state’s National Guard?

Guard leaders say the shortfalls raise concerns about whether some state units would be able to help other states as they did when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005.

“If the percentage of equipment (continues to fall), we may well be in the same situation as some of the other states in not being able to answer the call,” Ohio National Guard spokesman Mark Wayda said.

Still, Guard leaders in East Coast and Southeastern states vulnerable to hurricanes say they are able to meet anticipated emergencies in their states. A few others say they, too, are ready for emergencies.

Full Story Here:
Guard running low on equipment

I just got off the phone talking to my son who IS a member of the National Guard, the 256th BCT Louisiana Army National Guard and we were discussing this story and he had a wonderful comment I want to share with you, “We went to Iraq as a Mechanized Enhanced Separate Brigade, we had all the Hummers, Bradleys and Abrams we needed, we were called an ‘Enhanced Separate Brigade’ because we were a fully functional Brigade that could stand on our own and go to war, on our own, we were ordered to leave our equipment IN Iraq and we came home to be re-tasked as a Light Infantry Brigade, we can still go to war on our own but we don’t have as many Hummers with gun turrets and we don’t have the armor (Bradleys) any more…”

That pretty much sums up part of this story to which I am personally aware, and our local news here in Dallas did a piece recently regarding the lack of helicopters that the Texas National Guard is suffering, that is their drastic shortage, and Texas can still get the job done but a state this size needs ‘air’ equipment, Texas is too big to try and patrol strictly from the ground in case of disaster or insurrection…

What it boils down to is this, our current administration is robbing Peter to pay Paul and Peter is running out of assets, and as such, our HOMELAND defense, our 1st line of defense, the National Guard, is short on equipment and personnel because they are having to make up about 50% or so of the fighting force in Iraq and their equipment is being conscripted to stay IN Iraq…

OUR nation, OUR states, OUR National Guard units and OUR people are doing without so that we can keep on hanging around in Iraq, losing American lives, wasting BILLIONS of American tax dollars and having untold millions upon millions of dollars worth of equipment destroyed all to prop up a government and a people that don’t want us there to begin with, and would sooner kill us than to look at us…

It makes no sense to me, but what do I know??