Honor America’s Guard-Reserve Retirees Act (2013 - H.R. 679)

I hear you but in my experience(I just retired in July from the Guard), there are a number of folks who are in the RC (more USAR than ARNG in my opinion) who have no deployments or active duty other than IADT. I'm not one for meaningless legislation, but I think for 20+ years of service, it's fair to call one a Veteran.

1SG Joseph Yorski, MHS - I am strongly in favor of everyone who raised their hand and took the Oath of Enlistment or Office having the title. My question wasn't a criticism of the Act, but rather, an honest question about something I didn't know.

I was ARNG for 1-1/2 years as a teenager, enlisted RA for four years, USAR for 2 years, commsioned RA for four years. When I was USAR, I did a number of times on orders for 1-2 days to perform color guard for recruiting command functions. While on active duty, we had some IMA's serve with us. I know Guard units that deployed overseas for AT. During the Gulf War, there were some Guard & Reserve units that didn't deploy, but set up at Fort Hood while we were gone. Between that, mobilization for disasters, deployments to war zones and peacekeeping (like Bosnia), etc., I wondered if many go 20 years without an opportunity for few days for other than training. I never really thought about it before.