This is a followup to a post now in the archives. Much of what I originally posted is echoed by Col. Dan Smith at
Destruction of the National Guard>
"It bought us the time we needed."
Lieutenant-General James Lovelace, USA
"It," for General Lovelace, the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations was the deliberate decision to throw more Army National Guard and Army Reserve units into Iraq's dirty war-cum-occupation in 2005. It has cost some communities, some states, dearly.