Fifteen Years of service and still a 'Guard Baby'

TN, UNITED STATES

12.13.2023

Story by Tech. Sgt. Teri Eicher 

134th Air Refueling Wing

The first time I heard the term ‘Guard Baby’ I had been a member of the Air National Guard for ten years. Of course I didn’t think it applied to me—how could I be considered a ‘baby’ with a decade of service? Once I found out that it simply meant you’d joined the National Guard and never served active duty, I was left feeling a little… insulted.

‘Guard Baby’ seemed like something derogatory for us to use about ourselves, and which likely spawned in an active duty environment. That’s where terms like ‘Guard Bum’ and ‘Guard Gloves’ originate, with a subtle hint that guardsmen are somehow less polished, less prepared, less ‘military’ than they ought to be. Every National Guardsman is aware that, when we deploy, we will have something to prove to active duty Airmen.

The attitude is somewhat understandable: active duty Airmen volunteer to be shipped around the world, working their job every day, and are married to the military way of life. They have stricter requirements to gain rank, and they don’t have many of the options that the guard affords us. They are far more practiced at their fields than most guardsmen, solely based on the amount of days they perform the actual job. They don’t have the same need to ‘adapt’ to a new duty location; that is already their life.

However, the flip side of that coin is also important: guardsmen have only 24 days in a year to complete the same required training as the 365 days active-duty Airmen receive. We often do our upgrade training on our own time around day jobs, attending college, and other obligations.

Our professional military education is, often as not, completed as a correspondence course (meaning once again, in our free time), either because we can’t take the time out of our lives to attend, or because there are no schoolhouse seats available. We have to request time off from our civilian employers for any military requirements. Some Airmen drive hours each way to attend a drill weekend, serve two incredibly busy days, then make the return trip just to work the next day.

Even when our military career is not our day job, many guardsmen end up finding a career that incorporates it. Maintenance workers are often found working on cars, boats, aircraft, or anything else with an engine. Security Forces Airmen gravitate toward sheriff or police departments in our communities. Civil Engineering Airmen often have jobs in construction or city planning. So in a way, a large portion of our guard family is doing their military job in some capacity every day.

In my fifteen years, I have served roughly a year and a half ‘non-active’ days and less than three years of ‘active duty’ time. But in those fifteen years, I have:

Held two military careers, both with 6-month schools
Completed a master’s degree
Moved to a new state and switched guard units
Held too many civilian jobs to count
Completed two sets of 7-level upgrade training (on my own time)
Completed a year-long career field merger
Attended Airman Leadership School by correspondence
Attended in-residence Non-Commissioned Officer Academy

And in that time, I have occasionally wondered if I should have enlisted active duty. I had a bachelor’s degree when I joined, I could have commissioned. Reflecting on it now, I wonder if I would have enjoyed the chance to relinquish control of so many things, in exchange for adventure and a broader view of the world. My life would certainly have been quite different. I would be different.

What I know is that the Guard offers things that you can’t get anywhere else. At the 134th Air Refueling Wing, I know Airmen who have parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, or siblings currently serving at this unit. Families for whom it is a tradition to be part of the 134th ARW. People who serve thirty and forty year careers here. We receive a lot of active-duty Airmen who no longer want to live the military life full time, but they still want to serve and are happy to find a home that gives them that freedom.

Recently, Command Chief Master Sgt. Mike Johnson took a moment to tell us that in the four years he’s held the position, we’ve had over six hundred new members, or effectively replaced nearly half of all Wing members. Some are ‘palace chasing’ from active duty, and many are signing up before they even graduate high school.

Every drill weekend, I see these fresh faces around base. Our student flight never seems to dip below several dozen new recruits waiting to attend basic military training and start their military careers. Some of them will get out after one enlistment. Some might join active duty because the guard isn’t enough of a military experience for them, after all.

However, a large portion of them will find a home here, among lifelong friends with whom they share the struggles of guard life. Maybe they joined because they already have family serving, or perhaps they will inspire their own family to join one day. Maybe life will take them to another state and they’ll find a spot with a new guard unit, where things will be different but still feel very much like home.

And so when I take all of this into account, I understand why we’ve adopted the term ‘Guard Baby’ and those other seemingly derogatory phrases. In the guard, we work harder, make do with less, and hold dual state and federal missions, all while maintaining the essence of what makes the guard so special: family. So, with active duty phrases, as with active duty missions, we’ve taken them, adapted them, and made them our own. We don’t do things the active duty way; we do them the National Guard way.

It isn’t an insult to be a ‘Guard Baby.’ It’s a badge of honor to serve an entire military career side by side with a civilian life. It’s rewarding, challenging, and at times downright exhausting. But we are still part of that .5% who join the military of our own accord, and just like our active duty brethren, we begin our careers with the statement:

I am an American Airman
I have answered my nation’s call.

• Date Taken: 12.13.2023
• Date Posted: 12.13.2023 10:35
• Story ID: 459815
• Location: TN, US