"Cub Driver" wrote in message
news

After Vietnam the Guard and Reserve were deliberately given missions that
made it IMPOSSIBLE to have a medium to major scale war without
significant
callups.

Just so. Take civil affairs, for example. During the 1980s, there was
no civil affairs unit in the U.S. Army. I believe the same was
(perhaps is) true of chemical warfare. The army got rid of these
specialist jobs to the guard, just as it got rid of KP to civilian
contractors.

There were indeed chemical units in the AC during the 80's. One chem company
was assigned to each division; our seperate brigade a a smaller detachment
level organization. Focus for these units was on decon and smoke. Likewise,
while some 96% of the CA force was found in the USAR, there has indeed been
an AC unit in the structure--at one time it was the 95th CA Group, which was
stood down in the early seventies and replaced by the 96th CA Battalion at
Bragg, where it has been based ever since then, now under ARSOC.

Brooks


all the best -- Dan Ford
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