VSO: National Guard Plays Vital Role

It is important to remember the important role the National Guard has in our nation’s military as the local regiment prepares to deploy this weekend.

Putnam County Veterans Service Officer Mark Harris said the National Guard provides much needed relief to active duty forces whenever they deploy overseas. Harris said deployment also provides guardsmen with vital experience that goes beyond any local training efforts.

“I think people take more pride because they’re our local boys,” Harris said. “You know, these men and women that serve locally in our community, they’ve got family and friends and, you know, they grew up here. So when they deploy and come back I think it’s more personal.”

Harris said guardsmen have a particularly strong relationship with the community in Putnam County because they are the primary military presence in the area. Harris said the National Guard is filled with modern-day citizen soldiers that he supports just the same as any other military service member.

“We help serve them in filing claims and putting the claims together,” Harris said. “And we help them in developing the claims at the same time. Of course, it’s about active duty and about drill time so we help them differentiate between the two also.”

Harris said he looks forward to helping guardsmen’s families in their absence and support them when they return.

“Part of me, I miss it,” Harris said. “I feel like I’m supposed to be with them on the deployment versus being back here.”

Harris said the National Guard became much more relevant in the military when it started taking regular deployment rotations in Operation Desert Shield in 1990.

“They’re at home,” Harris said. “They have a full-time job. Once a month they’ll have drill for the weekend and once a year they’ll do a two-week drill. And so the perspective, they take the National Guard and they see them in that light, but in reality they bring a lot more to plate.”

Local guardsmen deploy this weekend.