Acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee meets with Soldiers at Chain of Lakes Stadium in Winter Haven, Fla. More than 10,000 people were in attendance to welcome home members of the Florida National Guard. Photo by Sgt. Carmen Burgess.

Fifteen Guard Soldiers died in Iraq while engaged in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and another Guard Soldier, from Alabama, collapsed and died at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba while taking part in Operation Enduring Freedom.

Acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Kenneth Preston maintained during separate interviews in April that Guard Soldiers are proving their mettle in the two major combat theaters, Iraq and Afghanistan. They are also getting the best individual equipment and training that the Army is providing any of its personnel, sent in harm's way.

"These are all Soldiers. There is no difference, and we want to be sure that they're all trained properly, equipped properly and supported properly," said Brownlee, who became acting secretary of the Army in May 2003. "We don't want any difference in treatment in any way, because we expect the same of them in combat. We depend of them too highly."

Brownlee, a retired Army colonel who has served as the 27th undersecretary of the Army since Nov. 14, 2001, said the Army gave three Guard infantry brigades a higher priority for state of the art combat equipment, including sighting systems for their rifles, than it gave the active components before they deployed to Iraq so the Guard Soldiers would have adequate time to train with their new gear.

Brownlee was referring to the Army Guard's 30th, 39th and 81st Infantry Brigades from North Carolina, Arkansas and Washington state, respectively, that were among 42,200 Guard Soldiers on duty in Iraq and Kuwait in late April, according to National Guard Bureau statistics.

"I think these Soldiers today are members of the second greatest generation," said Brownlee in reference to NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw's 1998 book on WW II’s the “Greatest Generation."

"Every one of them is a volunteer during a time of war. I think that is so admirable. They're all my heroes, and I love them to pieces," added Brownlee who clearly knows how thoroughly the Guard has been integrated into the total Army.

He tipped his hat to the Soldiers in the Oklahoma Army Guard's 45th Infantry Brigade, who are training and conducting combat operations with the Afghan National Army in Afghanistan.

Brownlee also praised the 20,000 Active, Guard and Reserve Soldiers who were told in April they would have to remain on duty in Iraq for 90 or so days beyond the full year they anticipated being on the ground.

"Our reports are that they responded quite well to that," he said. "In the final analysis, every Soldier knows that mission comes first. That's a part of the Soldier's Creed and when the mission demands it you sometimes have to do things that you hadn't planned to do. In a war, the enemy gets a vote."

"We could not do this mission without them. They are an integral part of the team and a very valuable asset to the combatant commanders on the ground," praised Preston who became the 13th sergeant major of the Army last January after serving in Baghdad as the command sergeant major for Combined Joint Task Force 7.

"I've watched National Guard Soldiers across the board perform a wide variety of key and critical missions in combat as well as taking care of other Soldiers," he added in early April. "Unless you recognize the patches on their sleeves, you don't know if they're Active, Guard or Reserve."

The civilian skills that Guard Soldiers bring to the fight are also important, Preston said. Those who have been police officers and corrections officers back home have helped restore order to more than 30 looted and gutted police stations in Baghdad and are right at home guarding suspected anti-coalition insurgents and other detainees at prison facilities.

"A lot of the Guard's military police are police officers in the civilian world, too," Preston said. "They brought a lot of great expertise to help jointly man the police stations with the Iraqi police, train the Iraqi police and watch over the contractors who were rebuilding the police stations. A lot of National Guard soldiers did very, very well in helping to make those police stations operational."

Many of the Army's battalion and brigade leaders understand what the Guard and Reserve Soldiers bring to the table, Preston added, because they have frequently served together since the Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the early 1990s.

The Army Guard has taken its licks while supporting the war against terrorism far from home. To paraphrase the poet T.S. Eliot, April has been the cruelest month for Guard Soldiers engaged in Operation Iraqi Freedom as it has been for American forces overall.

According to Department of Defense reports, of the 15 Guard Soldiers lost in Iraq, during April, 13 were killed in action.

Five Soldiers from Arkansas's 39th Brigade were killed during the month's final weekend - four during a mortar attack on their base camp in Taji and the fifth when his convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device and small arms fire.

Maine Army Guard Spc. Christopher Gelineau, who was killed on April 20 in Mosul, was reported to be the 100th American service member to die in Iraq where about 135 of them made the sacrifice in April.

And Wisconsin Spc. Michelle Witmer on April 9 became the first woman Guard Soldier to ever be killed in action, from one of the commonly-used explosive devices and small arms fire.

Army Guard historians do not recall a worse month for National Guard casualties since World War II even though there have been some very bad days.

Seven Kentucky Army Guard Soldiers, most of them from Bardstown, Ky., were killed on the night of June 19, 1969, when Viet Cong troops attacked a firebase held by the estimated 150 members of C Battery, 2nd Battalion, 138th Field Artillery, said Maj. Les Melnyk, an Army Guard historian.

"The attack was defeated, but that was nonetheless the single worst moment for the Guard in Vietnam," he added.

"I think the Soldiers have always recognized the dangers they were going into. The ones I have talked to seemed very aware of it," remarked Brownlee about how the Guard and other Soldiers he has visited have accepted the idea of serving under fire.

"I think they develop those sensitivities during their training."

Brownlee said the Guard and Reserve soldiers he has met would rather be sent to war if they are mobilized so they feel they are doing something important rather than be "frittered away" on a security mission in this country.

"I've said all of my life that there's only one thing worse for a Soldier than going to war, and that's not getting to go," said the secretary who served two tours in Vietnam during his 22 years in uniform.

His two Silver Stars and his Purple Heart, for being wounded in action, indicate he has learned firsthand the dangers and the pain of combat.