Word: guardsmen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...examine the gunk. Although the bales consisted primarily of paper, investigators discovered hospital items -- syringes, bedpans -- that could pose a health hazard. The bales were also beginning to ooze, and inspectors feared the scum would leak into the river. Governor Edwin Edwards half jokingly threatened to deploy National Guardsmen on the levees with orders to shoot if the barge tried to dock. As the vessel meandered about the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana Attorney General William Guste trashed federal authorities. "The Environmental Protection Agency was not watching it at all," he said. "If that barge tips or runs into a storm...
...marchers, protected by 1,700 National Guardsmen and 500 Georgia state troopers, went on. "Hey, hey, ho, ho, K.K.K. has got to go!" they chanted. And in one of the largest demonstrations in the Deep South since the 1960s, they joined in singing King's old anthem, We Shall Overcome. Declared Bernice King, daughter of the martyred leader, at a closing rally: "On behalf of a new generation of civil rights leaders, we graciously accept the leadership when you hand it over...
Gone are the days when the Guard operated with cast-off equipment from the regular military. Guardsmen now drive the latest M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, while Guard pilots fly every type of Air Force plane save the top-secret F-19 Stealth fighter. The Texas Air Guard, for example, recently acquired $723.9 million worth of new equipment, including 21 F-16 fighters costing $22 million each...
While some experts are worried that the military has become too dependent on the Guard, the nation's Governors fret about losing control of the troops they like to think of as their own. More than half-a-dozen Governors have said they would rebuff Pentagon calls for Guardsmen to serve along the Honduran-Nicaraguan border. Some, like Maine's Joseph Brennan and Arizona's Bruce Babbitt, are reluctant to help the Reagan Administration in its support of the contras. Most of the reservations, however, arise from the Governors' determination to retain full authority to use the Guard in such...
...shut off their faucet." Indeed, the Defense Department indirectly threatened to do just that last week. In an attempt to rally Governors and Congressmen against more defense budget cuts, the Pentagon raised the possibility that the National Guard would be seriously hurt by the reductions. For some 140,000 Guardsmen, that could mean unwelcome discharges and even more unwelcome weekends spent mowing the lawn at home rather than patrolling the bush abroad...