Tension between National Guard and Active Duty Army?

During the Vietnam War I was called up with a reserve intelligence detachment in support of the 69th Infanry Brigade of the Kansas National Guard. Shortly after arriving at Fort Carson there was an ATT, and the NG outperformed the active duty brigades!

Oddly Enough, I've Always Though Of Joining The National Guard As A Way
To Avoiding The Military Services. ~ Not Meaning To Be Funny, But That Was How I Saw It.
Somewhat As I Did When I Was Discharged In 1965 And Chose To Continue With Being In
The "Inactive Duty" Category......"Inactive = Not Doing Sh*t. " ~ And I Never Did After Active Duty.

Humans are not judgmental. Especially us folk in the United States. We are trained that “status”, “Class” and “hierarchy” place each of us in a certain place to be judged. Such as we are “told” that a 2nd LT is dummer than a bag of rocks, but is an officer so we MUST respect them. We are “told” the Colonel is a god and smarter than all of us, so we MUST respect them.
So what happens with the example above is our BASIC teaching that the poor, the ‘don’t haves’ or the under privileged shall hate those who aren’t poor, do have or are privileged.
My point: we are taught to judge others and where we PERCEIVE them to sit in the hierarchy. Active Duty is taught to dispose the Guard. Why? The guard has an average of 60 days of training a year and that is focused on MOS (supposed to be at least). The catch is that training is not (supposed to be) inundated with extra curricular activities such as painting rocks, flag pole duty, CQ Fire Guard etc.
The little part the super judgmental people don’t learn until they actually WORK with the Guard and see the truth: the FULL time Guard folk such as Technicians and AGR, actually focus on their jobs AGAIN with out distractions.
An example: In Aviation, a regular CAB, has 12 Chinooks. Spread throughout the CAB in the B Co, D Co and the ASB are 99, 15u mechanics of various ranks. In the Active Duty has anyone EVER seen 99 mechanics working on aircraft??! Why? 33% are off duty on leave, medical, pass and so forth. Another 33% are assigned to additional duties (“painting rocks”, color guard, flag detail, 1SG details, barracks clean up, etc.
That leaves 33, 15Us to work on aircraft. Remove the E6s and E7s, whom by the NCO agreed should be working directly with people on the aircraft, but tend to be thrown into QC and platoon duties AWAY from the aircraft.
Now you have 24 mechanics split between 3 units or…ONLY 8 mechanics available to work per unit. Sadly…8 of those “mechanics” are Flight Engineers and are involved in flying duties more than maintenance duties.
Leaving 16 mechanics available to work on aircraft.
Of course those 16 mechanics are involved in “Army” training requirements each day, meetings, briefings, plans, training…etc. So more distracted then focused maintenance for a small part of the day.

In the Guard there is only ONE full size, One location 12 ship Chinooks unit. The rest are split between states in what is supposed to be 6 ship units.
In that one full size Chinook unit, ALL the Chinook’s are assigned to the Army Aviation Support Facility (AASF) to maintain and fly. In that AASF, ALL maintenance is done by full time technicians and AGRs with temporary support provided by part time soldiers that want to come in and earn a little extra pay during the week. Advantage AASF; ALL shops and sections are only feet from each other. No mile long trips and rivalries between the ASB and the D Co and fights over whose job it is to do. I have wasted a full day waiting to get an MFD replaced at an active duty base while the B Co, D Co and ASB fought over WHO’s MFD would be used. As the Maintenance Officer of the AASF, there was no B, D or ASB difference. As a matter of fact we had TASM-G personnel working full time on aircraft. E8s worked on aircraft turning wrenches. ALL supervisors Turned wrenches. An Engine guy who wasn’t busy helped with rotorheads. A power train guy would remove rotorblades with line mechanics. EVERYONE learned EVERY job and we embedded TIs in each section. Because his help the TI who said, “I’ll be out in a minute” and take 2 hours to get there. Because that ONE human held op an entire teams production because…?

So…those fat lazy, no PT National Guard guys on that Chinook worked 8 hours a day for 5 days on CHINOOKs. Not painting rocks, not doing NCOERs. Yes…all businesses have crap that interferes. But there was this asshole CW5 DIRECTLY in charge of that maintenance section and not too many people interfered with the mission.
How many Acrive Duty Units have a 39 year CW5 working and turning wrenches on the flight line, getting dirty with the team?

Yup, the National Guard can not dig foxholes, trenches, clear buildings or take that hill. But we can maintain and fly aircraft because that’s ALL we do…AND…we have the exact same requirements as the Active duty…AND we accomplish MOST OF THOSE REQUIREMENTS IN 17% of the time.
An argument: Quality or Quantity?
The Guard does not have the budget of the Active Army… we are part time for a reason. So we tend to believe in quality over quantity and in my opinion…I would put my 5 aircraft up against any active duty units 10 and fly the exact same amount of missions and time.
You have been taught to judge the Guard based on our height and weight standards. Yup…we suck at that. Is that a fair judgement after you look at our MISSION performance? You are NOT taught that because it would undermine the good feeling of judging others unfairly.

Judge people for who they ACTUALLY are…NOT what you are TAUGHT to believe they should be.

Peace

I served both on active duty and in the NG. My experience is this, in soldier skills, the NG was weak, but in technical skills, we far surpassed the active duty troops for many of the reasons already given. We had more real world experience. In Aviation specifically, our aircrews and mechanics all had thousands of hours not only in their rated aircraft, but possible 4 or 5 others.

Something like this should never happen but it does I think the whole point is everyone of us are in the military for one reason and one reason only TO DEFEND THIS COUNTRY THATS IT, some people miss that point.

Teach. Mentor. Lead. Have expectations. Expect performance. Expect that any Soldiers regardless of service component, live by the Army values, or those of their branch. Have pride in the unit. Talk about the unit's accomplishments. Connect everyone to that in a meaningful way. I served twice as an AC/RC advisor to Guard and Army Reserve units, and the Guard has some... quirks. So be it. Take people one at a time, and do your job. Expect the same of them.

In a way I owe the people who were National Guard a debt of gratitude. When I left the Army in March 1968 I was told, if my memory serves me right, that I had a 6-year obligation to serve in the National Guard. However, since there were so many people on the waiting list to join the Guard I never had to do anything.

After my initial enlistment as an MP, I went into the National Guard for 5 years. After a few months I got into a Guard CID detachment. They were some of the most professional criminal investigators I ever worked with. They weren't much on soldiering, but they did a great job as investigators. All were either civilian cops or retired cops.

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Haha, I was in both, and it's just a counter part razzing thing based on ego.... PT standards used to be the same across the board. Until they started wussifying with those dam stress cards. ( In 1995, we we the last couple groups that were yelled at and smoked to eradicate wussyness, and get those who couldn't cut it,... out.
So knowing the razzing from both sides, is at the least a good memory to remember, along with the camaraderie and competition. We were all crazy enough to sign our lives away to uphold the Constitution of the Republic for the United States of America, not the corrupt politicians. That would be treason, something our Forefathers foresaw. Shit talking and razzing aside.. I prey we ALL stay on the same team, still and we end this "Selling Americans Out and America to the highest bidder" .