2020.05.20
JP Honk, March 9, outside Stony Brook Station, sneaking in an outdoor practice on an unseasonably warm night.
Trump Administration to End National Guard COVID Deployments One Day Before GI Bill Benefits Kick In Jeezus. From Politico's take: "Tens of thousands of them have been working full-time since early March on a wide range of sensitive and dangerous tasks, such as decontaminating nursing homes and setting up field hospitals, along with performing tests for the virus. They've provided a crucial backup for understaffed and underfunded state public health agencies trying to contain the pandemic." And Trump's administration is all, "thank you for your 89 days of risky service, now don't let the swinging door hit your ass on the way out".
I feel like the National Guard is much, much closer to what the country's founders had in mind than the military industrial complex we have today. (the same one Ike totally tried to warn us about) At this nation's formation, permanent standing armies were seen as a tool of tyrants - you had this idea of the citizen-soldier. Treating our Guardsfolk like this sucks.