Back when I was in the active U.S. Army (my whole stretch of service), we used to joke that the real acronym for the national guard (NG), meant No Gos.
While doing BCT in '69 there were a fair number of Guardsmen there.Their well known chant was "N-G...not going".
That may have been then, but....
When my NG Infantry unit was in-country in 2005-2006, we were landowners over more territory and had more troops in-country than the Active Component. Held our own, performed the mission, and our PT average was at or above our Active Component brothers.
Same when we were back there in 2007-2008.