This past Tuesday, July 29th, I officially retired from the Massachusetts Army National Guard.

I served for 27 years, 4 months, and 19 days, to include a 15 month active duty period in which almost a year of that was spent over in Iraq. I was a young stud senior in HS when I joined the Guard back in 1981. Back then, I fully expected I’d be fighting the evil soviet union on the plains of Germany someday! But as times changed, the soviet union went out of business, and the threat of ungodly, dicktatorial communism was replaced by the threat of gutless, ragheaded, brainwashed Islamic terrorism, a threat that became real to us on Sept 11^th, 2001. If you had told me back on ’81 that I’d be spending a year in the deserts of Iraq someday, I would have looked at you like you were nuts! At the time I joined the Army National Guard, Ronald Reagan had just become President, jimmy carter had instituted the selective service system the year before, and 52 Americans held hostage by gutless ragheaded terrorists had just been released upon Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as President. None of us at that time had viewed iraq under Sodom insane as our enemy. Ungodly, dicktatorial communism was still the primary threat of the free western world. In 27 years I saw the United States Army go through many changes; changes in training, tactics, equipment, and uniforms. In those 27 years I wore 4 different utility uniforms; the old green fatigues, the Battle Dress camouflage uniform, the desert camouflage uniform that I wore in Iraq, and finally today’s Army Combat uniform. In 2001 the black beret became the standard headgear for most Army uniforms in garrison.  With the Guard’s help I obtained a college education leading me to enroll in Officer Candidate school and receive my commission as a 2^nd Lt in 1991. As a Captain I commanded an Army National Guard maintenance company from 2001 to 2003 which for me was the best 1 ½ years of my career.  So now I no longer call myself a Soldier, but now a veteran. I’ll continue to use this blog to be a voice for the troops and their issues. I no longer have to plan my life around drill weekends and the 2-week annual training period every year, and after 27 years that’s going to feel strange.

I say I’m retiring but I am considering transferring to the Army Reserve, so I’ll keep you all informed about that. 

Paul