NCNGA Weekly Guardsman for February 8, 2018

February 8, 2018

 

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Register for the NCNGA Convention before “Early Bird Special” runs out February 12th! NCNGA 

Register today for our 57 th annual North Carolina National Guard Association Convention. This year’s
event will be hosted in Asheville at the Crowne Plaza resort in conjunction with the Combined Military Ball. Register before February 12th to receive our “Early Bird” special rates for registration and hotel. Take advantage of this beautiful setting with your friends and family… Click here for more details.

NCNGA Educational Foundation Golf Tournament NCNGA

Golfing in the mountains in March? Oh Yeah!! The NCNGA Educational Foundation Fundraising Golf Tournament will be held on Friday, March 16th at the Broadmoor Golf Links in Fletcher, NC – Shotgun Start at 9:00 AM.

Entry Fee $75 per person which includes cart and green fees, all prizes (Longest Drive Front and Back Nine, Closest to the Hole on Par 3’s, Hole in One on Par 3’s, Putting Contest at Conclusion of Round, Door Prizes) and Driving Range prior to round. Mulligans can be purchased for $5.00 (3 for $10.00). Money from the Mulligans is added to donations for the NCNGA Educational Foundation. Putting Contest is $10.00 with the Prize a 50/50 split the pot with the balance added to the donations to the NCNGA Educational Foundation for College Scholarships for the Guard and their families.

SO…. Put your team together or sign up individually and be placed on a team. To register as a team, please submit all four entry forms together along with checks totaling $300.00. Entry forms can be found in the Tarheel Guardsman or contact the NCNGAEF office at 919-851-3990 ext. 5 or edfoundation@ncnga.org

For additional information, contact Terry Westbrook at 919-601-0447

Hickory Students, Business Give Deployed NC Guard Care Packages DVIDS 

Piles of goodies donated by companies across the state were turned into love and support for deployed North Carolina National Guard Soldiers thanks to St. Stevens Lutheran School students, NCNG Soldiers and Airmen Assistance Fund members and local business executives in Hickory, North Carolina, Jan. 31, 2018.

Retired NCNG leaders and members of Soldiers and Airmen Fund Air Force Col. Steven Martin and Army Sgt. Maj. Dennis Roach, Col. Drew Goodwin helped plan the event at Hackney Service Merchandisers, a local company, with Hickory businessman and retired Army Reserve Command Sgt. Maj. Dean Cline Sr.

Hackney provided storage space for the $250,000 worth of snacks and comfort items that the 23 St Stephens’ students were to load into nearly 500 care packages soon to be shipped to deployed NCNG Soldiers worldwide.

Cline used years of experience in shipping and his business contacts to get donations for the packages.

Read More…

N.C. Aviation Soldiers arrive in a Lakota U-72 for career day Army.mil
RALEIGH, N.C. – Soldiers with the North Carolina National Guard’s 449th Theater Aviation Brigade (449th TAB) landed a UH 72 Lakota Helicopter on the field at Rogers Lane Elementary School, January 31, 2018.

The Soldiers were invited with the help of the school’s Personalized Learning Coach, Heather Collins, whose husband is the commander of the 1-130th Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, 449th TAB, as part of a career and character event for the students at the school.

“The kids at the school benefit one-hundred percent from seeing how they can apply their school skills outside the walls of the building,” Collins said. “Any opportunity we have to connect real world experiences to our students’ learning, we take advantage of.”

The Soldiers who arrived in the helicopter included pilots, helicopter maintenance, crew chiefs and administrative support; giving the children a wide scope of ways their education could be applied outside the workforce.

Collins said that leading up to the event, student’s learned about helicopters in the classroom, helping the students to ask more thoughtful questions.

Read More…

Help Support our NC National Guard Members! NCNGA 

Support our North Carolina National Guard members by participating in our 57th Annual NCNGA Convention as a vendor or sponsor (March 17th – 18th). Gain great exposure for your services, products and company by participating in our largest event of the year. Click here for more details…

Participating organizations include:

  • Companies offering products and services for military contracts
  • Nonprofits interested in recruiting membership
  • Organizations looking to market products and services directly to individuals and their families
  • Colleges and Universities looking to offer higher educational opportunities
  • Businesses looking to hire Soldiers and Airmen transitioning to civilian jobs
  • Organizations wanting to support our military here in North Carolina

Goodbye, tape test? Sweeping DoD fitness review underway NavyTimes
As the Pentagon seeks to build a fitter force, everything is under review — from a new PT test to eliminating the dreaded body fat tape test to changing how troops eat and exercise.

The potentially sweeping fitness policy changes are part of an effort to meet Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ call for a more lethal, deployable force.

There’s a “marginally increasing number of individuals across the services who are not able to pass their basic physical fitness test to serve in their respective services,” Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told reporters Jan. 30.

“Each of the services has a slightly different test,” Selva said. “One of the standards in all of those tests is your weight and your body mass. And there is a detectable and increasing trend toward people not being able to meet that standard. That means, technically, without a waiver, they are not able to deploy. So we need to focus on those things.”

Last July, Mattis directed the services to look at what factors were negatively impacting force lethality and readiness, to include looking at why a portion of the force is non-deployable.
Read More…

ATTENTION: In first, 3 National Guard generals now in House Washington Examiner
For the first time, the House has three current National Guard brigadier generals in its ranks.

The latest to get his stripes was Mississippi Rep. Trent Kelly. He is a 32-year Mississippi Army National Guard combat engineer. Just before his official ceremony last week, he said, “I am humbled to accept this promotion and honored to serve and represent our state and nation.”

Read More…

State Employees’ Credit Union (SECU) Supervisors Honored with ESGR Patriot Awards SECU
SECU employee and North Carolina National Guardsman Richard Warner recently returned from a two-month stint in Puerto Rico – the second service deployment for the Army National Guard Captain. Leading up to and during his deployment there were many things he had to prepare for quickly, but two things he never worried about was the status of his job at the Raleigh-Capitol Square branch or the backing he would receive from his co-workers. SECU Vice President Neil Piner and Senior Vice President Sandra Coburn provided ongoing assistance for Richard, helping with financial matters and being a supportive resource for his wife while he was away. To show his appreciation, he nominated his supervisors for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) Patriot Awards, which reflect efforts made to support citizen warriors prior to, during and after deployment, including flexible schedules, leave of absences, and caring for families.
Read More…

The Trump administration wants a bigger Army, putting pressure on military recruiters NCPR
The Trump Administration wants to grow the Army substantially, even as potential recruits get harder to find. That’s putting more pressure on recruiters than they’ve seen in years.

Last spring, the Army sharply increased the number of active duty enlistees that its recruiters were expected to sign.

It was the largest mid-year increase in the history of the all-volunteer force. The “mission,” as recruiters call their goal, jumped from 62,500 to 68,500 active-duty enlistees.

And when recruiters squeaked by that goal in October, they were given another huge increase: 80,000 new enlistments for the full year.

“An 80,000 mission for the active Army is huge, and it’s something we haven’t done in a very long time,” said Kelli Bland, a spokeswoman for the Army Recruiting Command.

Bland said the Pentagon understands the challenge of recruiting so many soldiers. It has added 400 new recruiters, and it’s offering substantial bonuses for early enlistees and candidates for jobs the Army especially needs to fill.

It’s spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the bonuses and on marketing efforts, and it has been more willing to give waivers for recruits with past marijuana use.

Read More…

February — Today in Guard History National Guard 

1978 Northeast to Upper Midwest, United States – The last of three consecutive blizzards, often with hurricane force winds leaving snow drifts as high as 15 feet, finally clears allowing the slow process of digging out to begin. Guardsmen in 21 states, from Maine to North Carolina west to Tennessee and north into the Dakota’s are on state active duty for weeks helping to clear roads, move emergency supplies, offer first aid, evacuate families stranded without heat and in many cases staff armories as shelters. With more than 17,000 personnel on duty at some point this is the largest multi-state mobilization of Guardsmen in aid to civil authorities for one event up to that point in the nation’s history. Read More…

The Weekly Guardsman


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