Insight

The dictionary defines “patriot” as “one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests.” A project examining the Alabama National Guard’s role in a post-9/11 world puts those 13 words into a context that is both reassuring and heartbreaking.

“Old Guard, New Battle,” a special section by the University of Alabama Knight Community Journalism Fellows and The Anniston Star, begins on Page 1G of today’s paper. It includes a survey of 420 Guard members that was conducted earlier this year. A documentary movie is available online at annistonstar.com. The report’s findings include:

• Evidence of a growing reliance on citizen-soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and how that has spelled peril for states dealing with natural disasters at home.

• Pained voices of families separated by warfare.

• Recruiting figures that are rebounding after a lengthy decline.

• Soldiers unsteadily readjusting to life back home after time on the front.

• An increased need for health services for Guardsmen returning from battle.

• Guard units training with substandard equipment.

• Higher-than-average jobless rates for returning Alabama Guardsmen.

It’s not surprising. The United States rushed to war with Iraq without a plan for occupation. That prewar haste in 2002 and 2003 is today taking its toll on Americans in uniform, their families and their communities. Alabama is no exception.

“Old Guard, New Battle” puts into flesh-and-blood details a well-known story.

Alabama plays a major part in this saga; it has sent more Guardsmen to Iraq per capita than any other state except Texas.

Yet, patriotism still means something to members of the Alabama National Guard. Or, as one Alabama Guardsman who has served in Iraq said, his mindset remains “God, family and country.”

Survey respondents are dedicated to serving their country. Their morale is high, for the most part. Joining the National Guard is not a mercenary enterprise. They long to serve while wearing the uniform of their country. Love of country and patriotism are more than a politician’s trite applause lines.

As one Guardsman wrote in his survey, “We are a family willing to die for one another, and each other’s families and yours.”

Here is something to celebrate — to ponder, to hold on to, to refresh one’s spirit even — on this Memorial Day weekend. Despite the hardships, the mindset of the American soldier — as represented by the men and women of the Alabama National Guard — proudly carries on.

Something else to keep top of mind this weekend and beyond is our government’s treatment of these citizen-soldiers. In recent weeks, the buzz in official Washington has been over whether or not the president and Congress could come to terms over a war spending bill.

Instead of the usual partisan maneuvering and/or the congratulatory political backslapping that typically follows Beltway resolutions to thorny issues, more is needed this time. All parties — from Congress to the White House — need to roll up their sleeves and go to work on the far-ranging war-related issues facing our country.

Poor planning and faulty thinking put U.S. soldiers, including those profiled in “Old Guard, New Battle,” in a bind.

U.S. soldiers — yes, all service branches and especially National Guard units — are paying today for the sins of bad policy decisions. We see it along the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast and tornado-stricken plains of Kansas as Guard units and equipment are in Iraq and unable to lend a hand to emergencies at home.

These mistakes cannot be erased. What must be accomplished are fixes for the future, meaning an actual reckoning of their true costs.

Steps for Washington and the states include:

• Getting ready for an influx of returning Guardsmen who will need medical services, for both physical and mental ailments acquired in the theaters of operation. The veterans’ care facilities will be treating these soldiers until well past the middle of this century. Budget writers will ignore this at the peril of soldiers.

• Realizing that many Guard members don’t live in large urban areas, where most VA facilities are located. Reaching out to vets in rural places in Alabama and elsewhere is a priority.

• Accounting for what lengthy Guard deployments can do to the economic life of small communities, including the costs to local governments and small businesses that depend on citizen-soldiers whose other jobs include police officer, firefighter and main street merchant.

• Replenishing Guard units stripped bare of soldiers and equipment by weak recruitment figures and extended tours overseas.

• Reconciling the need for better training of Guard units that, as “Old Guard, New Battle” reports, are preparing for deployment with outdated equipment.

• Setting up a stronger network to care for families left behind when a parent is called to active duty for an extended tour in Iraq or Afghanistan. Unlike at a military base, where a system exists for spouses and children dealing with a family member who is on the frontline, Guardsmen’s families are often isolated.

• All of the above are long-term needs. In this light, the debate over when the United States leaves Iraq is less meaningful. Caring for the damage inflicted on Guard units will be required long after U.S. soldiers have removed themselves from the civil war there.

Those leaders who do can rightly call themselves “one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests.”