Stories

The Iowa Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would help prevent Iowa soldiers from losing custody of their children because of their active-duty service. Senate File 2214 would protect Iowa Guard members’ and Reservists’ custodial rights during periods of federal activation. The bill would allow a court to order a temporary change of custody only [...]

Built in 1937, the 18,000-square-foot Iowa Armory National Guard Readiness Center in Iowa City served as a riding arena and stable for the Iowa cavalry, accommodating 125 men and their horses. Seventy-one years later, the same facility houses training facilities for five Iowa National Guard units with nearly 400 officers. The increasing demands of the [...]

Due to heavy snowfall and hazardous driving conditions, all schools in the Iowa City area shut down Wednesday. This, however, did not deter Regina Catholic School from opening its doors to host the Iowa National Guard’s 109th Medical Battalion’s send-off ceremony.
109th Medical Battalion stands at attention to begin the ceremony
Hundreds of friends and family members [...]

(Update: The Iowa House of Representatives passed House File 2065 this morning. There were no votes against the bill, which now heads to the Senate. Employers who fail to follow the law face possible simple misdemeanor charges with up to 30 days in jail and fines up to $625. Under the proposed changes to the [...]

One thing that Iowa’s Rep. Bruce Braley has proven during his freshman year in Congress is that he’s not afraid to take on the entrenched powers of Washington, D.C. While serving on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Braley, D-Iowa, earned the respect of the blogosphere in March, when he grilled Lurita Doan, [...]

While many Iowans spent Veterans Day weekend recognizing veterans and their sacrifices, members of the 186th Military Police Company, a Johnston-based Iowa Army National Guard unit, were bus-bound to Fort Dix, N.J. For the fourth time in the past 17 years, the Combat Military Police Company has been ordered to federal active duty. The 186th [...]

The adage goes: There’s the right way, the wrong way and the Army way. Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, intends to find out which way the Army took when it shortchanged thousands of National Guard soldiers on their GI Bill educational benefits, including over 600 members of the Iowa National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry, based [...]

Just as Beau Biden, a captain in the Delaware National Guard, had predicted in August at the Iowa Democratic Party Veteran’s Caucus Presidential Extravaganza in Des Moines, the vote on the emergency funding for the war in Iraq war has come back into play. Beau, the attorney general of Delaware, spoke on behalf of his [...]

The last thing Iowa’s National Guard and reserve soldiers need to worry about while deployed to war is whether or not they’ll have a job when they return to their civilian lives. Knowing this, the federal government passed USERRA (Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act) in 1994 to help protect the soldiers’ jobs, and [...]

While the front-end costs of funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan hold steady, the Bush administration keeps finding ways to skim costs on the back end. Using a cost-cutting technique perfected by the booming temporary-worker industry, the Bush administration has not only exhausted the National Guard to supplement the surge in Iraq but has [...]