I understand that a certain level of slime is involved in politics, but I expect
that some level of qualifications are expected for certain offices.
Really, Governor Deal? You appoint your floor leader, a former Air Force captain to be Georgia National Guard Adjutant General, a Major General billet?! And in order to do so, you bend the fuck out of the law by making him field grade (major) in the Georgia Defense Force?
So now only one of our three general grade officers in the Guard is actually a properly qualified general officer. Corruption is one thing, but at least strive for competent and corrupt.
OK, how will this work outside Georgia? Can Georgia National Guard units be called up to go overseas? What happens if Jim Butterworth’s unit is? Will the Federal government recognize him as a true O-8?
More important, has he information vegetable, animal, and mineral?
Usually there can be as many as three key major generals per state. The adjutant general, a commander for the national guard and a commander for the air national guard.
There is a process for federal activation of guard units.
The guard has enough to worry about in terms of being poorly
perceived by the regular services without redneck hoo haw politicians
doling out these jobs to unqualified political buddies.
I forgot one of his stars - he went from former O3 Air Force/AF Reserves to LG/O9 in the Georgia Defense Force. Even in cases of properly certified general officers, the Feds won’t acknowlege anything higher than O8 for state adjuntants general. What I’ve learned is that some states have made a sufficiently large joke of the position that some of the state AGs don’t wear their uniforms at the Pentagon. From what I’ve read, the official federal rank for this guy is O4/major.
The problem with bad appointments like this is that it sends a message that the governor isn’t taking defense seriously. The Guard is deployed domestically in disaster events, and Guard units can and are deployed operationally as part of the basic triad of military manpower: regular, reserves, guard.
There’s also a message sent by bad appointments to the actual Guard personnel and associated military agencies: your dickweed governor neither understands nor respects the military or its mission.
At best, you get an absentee placeholder who delegates and otherwise stays out of the way. At worst, the boob insists on actively doing the job with neither the background nor the training.
The job should engage properly qualified officers: existing general officers with the proper training, or colonels ready for promotion to the general officer ranks.
