The consequences of overextending the National Guard are now clear

Patricia Taylore at Kos has dug out this tidbit from the August 1 St. Louis Post Dispatch:

America's citizen soldiers of the National Guard and the Army, Navy and Marine Reserves increasingly are casualties in the war in Iraq. And the nation's reliance on the Guard and Reserves is changing them.

Currently, members of the Guard and Reserves make up four of every 10 military personnel in Iraq. It's the largest long-term deployment of the nation's reserves in 50 years. And their casualties reflect that.

Men and women who just months ago held jobs such as truck driver, accountant and teacher now make up nearly one of every four servicemen and women being killed in the war.

In no state have those deaths registered more than in Louisiana. Louisiana, along with New York, has lost more guardsmen and reservists - 23 as of July 24 - than any state in the nation, and all but one of those deaths have come in the last eight months.

And like so many fighting in Iraq, the soldiers are from small, tightly knit towns - Olla, Batchelor, Opelousa, Pineville, Natchitoches, Ruston, Crowley and Houma.

Every one of those soldiers killed, as well as those still deployed, is one less soldier to do what the National Guard is SUPPOSED to do -- help with disaster recovery here at home.