I have heard this before... you know, the men and women who just joined the NG to pay for college, etc. I find it pretty hard to believe that the actual role of the NG totally escaped them. If they wanted to fight hurricanes, they should have gotten jobs at FEMA. I always wonder if these complainers really thought they were getting pay and benefits just to drill one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer (if that is what it is). For what? To defend us if we were attacked on a weekend? I don't believe, though, that these articles are at all representative of America's military families... just like I don't think the 9/11 families getting all that airplay speak for the majority of those Americans, either.