That’s Not The Role of Our National Guard

Think Progress reported Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) sharply criticized President Bush’s proposal, expected to be announced Monday, of sending thousands of National Guard troops to police the southern U.S. border. Hagel said flatly, “that’s not the role of our national guard.”

According to the National Guard website, "The National Guard traces its history back to the earliest English colonies in North America. Responsible for their own defense, the colonists drew on English military tradition and organized their able-bodied male citizens into militias. The colonial militias protected their fellow citizens from Indian attack, foreign invaders, and later helped to win the Revolutionary War." We don't have that many Indian attacks today, but we certainly do have a foreign invasion, and we need protection on the border.

The National Guard website also says National Guard continues its historic dual mission, providing to the states units trained and equipped to protect life and property, while providing to the nation units trained, equipped and ready to defend the United States and its interests, all over the globe. This use is a combination of the two: they are protecting us here, from a foreign invasion.

He added that “we’ve got National Guard members in their second, third and fourth tours in Iraq” and “stretched our military as thin as we have ever seen in modern times.”

They are doing a very good job there, but they need to learn how to close borders, so that when they are sent to Iraq or Afganistan, they can close those borders too.