When the prospect of military service popped up, I didn’t know the National Guard from a cattle guard. Generally speaking, that’s still the case, despite my having “served” in the Texas Army National Guard for nine years, not too long after muskets had been cast aside in favor of more effective firearms. More than 50 years have passed since those years sandwiched between Korea and Vietnam. My military training was confined to periodic evening and weekend drills, plus two weeks of more intense training each summer at Fort Hood. It was during an era of comparative peacetime. Some of the troops were grizzled ...