Why Does the Army Treat its Reservists and National Guard Soldiers Like Second Class Citizens?

After over 14.5 years of active duty AF. I will say that in my 8.5 years in the Army Reserve I was treated very well and felt that we were ready to go do our assigned mission if called.

During our AT, we were received and shown respect by the cadre at our assignment.

I could not agree with you more Chief.

So So correct, I witnessed this myself while serving in the Army Reserves on Active duty. My unit being treated unfairly. We Put our life on the line just like Active duty with less benefits. And may do longer deployments. I was stationed in Bosnia with an Active duty Air Force unit the deployment was 4 months. My Reserve unit was 6 months an we worked our butts off. My Unit filed a complaint on the Band Unit in Germany. While we where on our way to Bosnia our Unit had to stay in the Band Unit barracks. We where treated very unfair. For starters women an men had to live together in the Attic. We made the best of it. But the kicker was being told we couldn't use the latrines on the 5th 4th 3rd 2nd flr. We had to walk from the 6th floor to the 1st floor where the offices where located and used the latrines.

There’s always the perception the Reserve and Guard Members aren’t as good as the Active Component.
I’ve always loved the challenge of proving them wrong.

Edit

Hallelujah! 40 yrs in service as of Sep 2018!

A lot of it stemmed from the fact that few National Guard and Army Reserve were mobilized during Vietnam and service in either was considered almost draft dodging. The fact was that most of the post Vietnam Senior Leadership had that Idea instead of looking at the Historical record that in all the previous large conflicts, Guard units were often the first units in combat. While some of that was changing when I joined in 1982, if you look at the first large scale mobilization during Desert Storm, the Round Out combat units were not deployed with their divisions and no Army National Guard combat unit was sent to Saudi Arabia, although several were taken to NTC and abused as an excuse not to deploy them (I had just come back from a round out at NTC and can personally tell you how many Active Units get their asses kicked their at the time, All Of Them). It's simply not possible today to operate without integrating the Guard and Reserve, but some of the old prejudices still exist. I really didn't hear anything negative about the performance of the Guard in the War on Terror, so hopefully those prejudices are going away.
The funny thing is that in the case of Engineer, Maintenance, Transportation and Medical units, the performance on the Guard/Reserve side was superior to those Active Units. I would have matched my Engineer Company against any on Active Duty, I had real, experienced operators and mechanics and even the 12B's really knew their jobs and took them serious.
The Air Force has always done a better job integrating their Reservist than the rest of the Services.

I agree that we as National Guard are just as good as the active military. We have just as much training and knowledge

When I was AD I had two experiences with NG soldiers. One hit the 911 button on a BFT spinning us up for QRF needlessly as well as taking air assets away from where they would potentially be needed. The other experience was an NG convoy firing at our COP thinking our tower was an enemy position. So we were all pretty biased against the NG (rightfully so Id think). BUT when I switched to the guard I was a team leader in a squad that was just as good if not better at some things than my AD unit is.

Now as far as schools and equipment go that's probably just a state funded vs federal funded issue.

I spent 13+ years on Active Duty in the Corps. Got out for 9 years to raise my son. Wanted back in, but the Corps does not take old men; even when you have a lot of specialties.

Went to the Guard and still in the Guard. As with Active Duty Units...Guard units are hit or miss.

At the end of the day..it really boils down to one thing... Active Duty or Guard. Poor leadership = Poor Unit. NCO's are the backbone. If you have a unit that has Poor NCO's... you have a Poor Unit.
Best Example was my battalion; 1st Bn 9th Marines at Horno in 86. Bad NCO's and Senior Leadership = Bad unit. Next Training Cycle - New BC/Sgt Major/First Sgt's/Company Commanders/SNCO's and NCO's. = Best Infantry Bn in the Corps (on the west coast anyway - don't want to pick a fight with Camp Swampy (even though I was stationed there for 7 years and 4 deployments))

Now I am in the Guard. Hot and Cold. Iraq Deployment with Mostly good NCO's = Mostly Good Deployment.

We don't train like fight. We don't do the basics over and over. We are stuck doing SRP after SRP after SRP. CEI/PHA's/Sensitivity/SuicidePrevention/insert more useless classes here that take away from "Lethality Training." Don't get me started on using Behavioral Health to get out of everything!!! - the Magic "No-Go" bullet.

NCO's need to step up...or you need to be E-4's.

I am frustrated by what I see, experience and try and correct over and over!
We need to change the way we train in the Guard...Yes I have a plan for that.