Alabama's Morning News with JT
Army Brigadier General, Paul Greg Smith, joins us to give us insight what it was like in the National Guard
And welcome back to Alabama's Morning News. My name is John Mounts. I'm filling in for JT. And for many years, we have always heard about the National Guard and they're called weekend warriors. And they don't mean this in a kind way. They kind of mean it like, well, they're, you know, almost like this is slightly better than the Salvation Army. And so often, they're dismissed, but they shouldn't be because they make an important contribution to protecting our country. Joining me now is Brigadier General Greg Smith and his new book Confessions of a Weekend Warrior. Greg, welcome to the show. Thank you, John. It's great to be with you. You've been in the service for over 30 years. And after 35 years in the guard, you're kind of calling it quits. But before that, you are you've written this book explaining some of the things you've been involved in. What is the thing that's made you the most proud? Oh, wow. That's a tough question, John. So when people say to me, General, what have you done? You know, where have you been? What have you accomplished? I like to say facetiously, my career was one disaster after another. So my first day in the guard, we got called out to Sandbagger River to save a town's water supply pumping station. And I'm like, wow, this is cool. This is what we do every weekend, not every weekend. But in my last year of command, I was the military joint task force commander in response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. In between, there were hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, riots. In each of those situations, I was honored to lead men and women who saved other people's lives. That's my source of pride. So that's what I'm proud of stuff. Thanks for the question. That's a good one. People don't ask me that often. Sure. So when you first got involved with the guard, it was why did you make the decision? Because there's a lot of ways you could serve. You chose to serve this way. Why did you choose the guard over other branches? Well, that's a real good question, too. So I had to join the military. Even when I was a little kid, I mean, my first toy was a tank. It was just in my DNA. My father was a Navy officer. I think he cried when I joined the army, but he got over it. I joined Army ROTC to help pay for college and because I felt that I needed to serve and nobody likes to say this, but because I love America. So anyway, when I graduated, the ROTC cadre, whom I love, really wanted me to go on the regular army, but I wanted to be a special ed teacher. The only way that I was going to be able to do both things was to be a reservist or a national guardsman. I joined the National Guard. At first, I was kind of disillusioned, because way back in the '70s and '80s, and I write about this in the book, things were a little crazy in the National Guard. It ran more on beer than it did on diesel fuel. Over 35 years, it went from being this kind of laughingstock organization to being America's Swiss Army knife now, where guardsmen, staff, clinics, they drive school buses, they coil riots, they pull people out of floodwaters, and then two weeks later, they strap on their body armor and they go to war. People are tremendously flexible in the guard, and they manage those missions well. So I wanted to write the book as a tribute to them, and maybe as an explanation, people in the National Guard are not sitting around in armories. Anyway, John, long answer to a short question, but that's sort of why I wrote the book. Greg, what kind of training goes into being a guardsman? How does that training compare to that which active service members get? It's the same, and I think maybe that's a surprise too. I went through ROTC. My classmates, one of them became a Green Beret. One of them actually became a Marine. Another one last I heard he was commanding a company in Germany. They all went in the active component. I chose to go in the reserves. Later on, when I went for advanced training, I was shoulder to shoulder with regular army personnel, and I even taught at the United States Army War College in Pennsylvania teaching active officers and international officers about disaster relief strategies. So the National Guard is not all it is. It is part of the United States Army, but it is a reserved force that can also be commanded by state governors. It has a dual mission when the president calls and state mission when the governor calls. Greg, your book Confessions of a Weekend Warrior, those who read it, and yeah, I'm sure you hope a lot of people read it, what do you hope they get out of it? What do you want to the people after they've read this book to go do? All I want them to do is to first of all, I want to laugh. Part of this comes from relaying funny stories that happened across 35 years. But then, particularly towards the later part of my career, there's more serious content, particularly around the Boston Marathon bombings. I want them to come away with a sense of respect for the men and women, who staff who are part of our nation's National Guard. I want them not to take that service lightly. I want them to, cheese, when they're passing around collections to support military families for deployed soldiers, I want them to support those things. I want them to respect what these people offer. Greg Smith, thank you so much for your time today.