The term "weekend warriors" no longer applies to today's National Guardsmen and reservists, the Defense Department's top reserve affairs official said.
In many cases, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs Thomas Hall said in an interview Nov. 4, today's reservists and guardsmen are nearly full- time participants in the war on terror.
Deployment rates for current operations are changing the way the reserve components go about advertising and recruiting. It's all about managing expectations, Hall said.
"You really don't want to set an expectation and then not meet it," he said. "You want to tell people up front that this is what it's all about."
Recruiters today need to create a different expectation among prospective guardsmen and reservists, their families and employers. "That expectation is you're not going to be a weekend warrior," Hall said. "We're going to have to use you in a more robust way in the future."
Perhaps the terms "national guard" and "volunteer" should be changed as well.
The Defense Department has declared that the term "weekend warriors" is 