Reply #6: The National Guard is part of the US Army

[hack89]

their purpose is to fight America's wars. This idea that they are not supposed to fight overseas is incorrect - Viet Nam was the first major war where they did not fight overseas in large numbers.

During World War I, the National Guard provided 40% of the US Army's combat forces. Guard membership doubled in 1940, and provided 19 divisions during World War II, of which the National Guard units were among the first to deploy overseas and the first to fight. Later, 138,000 National Guardsmen were deployed for Korea, and many other smaller deployments. During the Vietnam war, almost 23,000 Army and Air Guardsmen were called up for a year of active duty; some 8,700 were deployed to Vietnam.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_National_Guard_of_the_United_States

This notion that the NG is a stay at home, natural disaster kind of organization is wrong.