Given the June 11 (1990) decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which takes away the power of the individual states to control and direct the National Guard Forces, the only way for Michigan to obey its own constitutional mandates is to repeal the Michigan Military Act and sever all connections with the National Guard.
The Michigan National Guard is not a constitutional body; it is created by law and that law can be and should now be repealed. Repeal of the Michigan Military Act would result in placing control of the National Guard in the Pentagon where such powers belong and are now being exercised.
Our Michigan Constitution makes no reference to a federally trained and federally integrated military force. But the state Constitution does provide for a state militia that shall be organized, equipped, and disciplined as provided by state law.
Under current U.S. military policy established and directed by the Pentagon, National Guard units are intended to be technologically advanced, highly trained military forces totally integrated with regular army units in the field.
We'd be better off with our own state militia, trained and equipped to meet civilian state needs such as conservation and environmental restoration programs, emergency traffic control, and recovery from natural disasters.
More important, by replacing the National Guard with our own state militia, we would stop the continuing destruction of some of Michigan's finest natural resources. We could begin the necessary process of recovering and restoring the 147,000 acres being devastated and contaminated by military operations at Camp Grayling.
By taking action now, the Au Sable and Manistee rivers could be rescued, and further environmental damage from raw sewage, oil spills, heavy metal deposits, could be avoided.
This is part of a letter that appeared in the Detroit News (7/5/90) as a rebuttal to comments by George Weeks (6/24/90) wherein Weeks wanted to "let Washington, not Lansing, decide where the National Guard goes to fight abroad."
Ferency believed that if Washington wants to decide, fine, but the National Guard should then be federalized and "trained in the jungles of Florida, in the Southwest desert, or better still, in Panama, to fight `terrorists and drug traffickers' in the Third World," as then proposed by President Bush. - Editor
RWOL
© Copyright 1997 - , Anglers of the Au Sable, Inc. All rights reserved. Last modified: January 20, 2005
