Hey, guys! I’m honored to be here and thank Jessica for inviting me.  I’ve posted once before (about the National Guard), but that was as a guest. Jessica’s now given me an actual login (Bwahahahahahahaaa!), so here I am!

My connection to the military is that I served for 7 1/2 years in the Army National Guard. My connection to romance is that I’m a college professor at Fayetteville State University (right outside Ft. Bragg), and I study romance novels for a living. I’m the President of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR) and I’ve recently published an analytical article on Suzanne Brockmann’s Navy SEAL/security contractor romance hero, Sam Starrett. I also review for Dear Author and post at Teach Me Tonight.

In my once a month posts, though, I’ll probably be posting about something a little more controversial than the National Guard or Suzanne Brockmann’s Navy SEAL heroes. Because not only was I an officer in the National Guard (and very proud of my service), but I am myself bisexual, something I can say now only because I’m out of the military. If I’d said it before my separation and someone in my command had noticed it, they would have separated me under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

I recently said on a podcast, “There’s gays in the military already. […] I once had somebody—a soldier—tell me, ‘Well, everybody knows that the military is antipathetic towards gay people so, if you’re gay, why would you want to join an organization that doesn’t want you?’ And I just looked at him and I said, ‘Gay people have the same patriotic feelings and the same nationalistic feelings, and the same desire to serve as anybody else.’ […] They’re not just gay, they’re Americans, and they feel just as strongly about that as you, with your straight privilege over there, and they want to act on that.”

I very much feel this topic is pertinent to the romance world because…well, because it’s about love. GLBT people cannot help who they are or who they love and, in most cases, wouldn’t want to. But that doesn’t mean they don’t want to serve, nor should it stop them from serving. If 5-10% of the general population is gay, then about 5% of the military is probably gay as well and should be allowed to serve, just as their straight brothers- and sisters-in-arms do. Because it doesn’t matter who they go home to at night. All that matters is that they get their job done.

I recently retired from the Army National Guard. This is going to be a boring post that has nothing to do with romance but everything to do with the National Guard and what it is and how we’re different from all the rest of the Armed Forces. I like to educate—I can’t help it.

The National Guard has been around since 1609–way before the actual country we defend. We are the Massachusetts Minutemen, the “well-regulated militia” that has the right to bear arms in the Constitution. When we swear the oath of enlistment or commission, we agree to obey the orders not only of the President (the office, not the person), but also of the Governor of the state to which we enlist/commission. Because the National Guard are the State Militias, it is only the National Guard that has the legal right to perform military operations inside the borders of the United States, and only at the behest of the Governor. So I wasn’t in the National Guard; I was in the North Carolina National Guard (and the Michigan Guard before that).

So any natural or man-made emergencies that need increased security or…well, well-regulated manpower, the Governors mobilize their National Guards: obviously, security after 9/11, but also ice storms, snow storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, SuperBowl security, Olympic security, crowd control. All (most of?) the security during the Civil Rights movement: National Guard.

But then, we can also, of course, be mobilized by the President as part of the Federal forces. At that point, we’re actually Federalized and no longer under control of the State apparatus at all. Most of the National Guard who responded to Hurricane Katrina was actually Federalized for the duration, because we were operating outside our own jurisdiction. So when I went from Greensboro, NC, to Hammond, LA, the Federal government paid my way (and I got a nice free trip on a C-130!).

But we train with the other Armed Forces. I went to Army Basic Training at Fort Jackson, SC. But I did Officer Candidate School through the National Guard (that’s also in the Constitution—Article I, Section 8: “To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.” But after OCS was over, I went to Officer Basic Course with Regular Army Second Lieutenants (the actual job I did was a Chemical Officer. OCS taught me how to lead, Chemical OBC taught me what to tell my soldiers to do).

And we’re different from the Reserves, because the Reserves are the Federal-only forces who train one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer like the National Guard, but report only to the President, not to the Governor. Which makes moving when in the Reserves not nearly as difficult as inter-state transfers in the National Guard.

And of course, there’s the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard, the Air Force wing of the Guard. I was in the Army National Guard. No rivalry there…no!

So, a down-and-dirty introduction to the National Guard. Hope you enjoyed it.

I haven’t looked very hard, but I know of only one author who has written about a National Guard soldier: Virginia Kantra’s Sea Witch has a National Guard hero. Can anyone out there tell me of any more?