Any Military exceptions in Mass?

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From curiosity (I was never in either) your scenario is the NG's "One weekend a month, two weeks a year" thing?

What does "active duty" mean in terms of National Guard?
Active duty to a member of the ng is if your called up for federal service.....like Iraq amd Afghanistan for example.

When a ng soldier goes to basic training that is not technically active duty.....its classified as "active duty for training".
 
My own feeling is that former NG/RC soldiers can ethically think of themselves as veterans; if they're not mobilized, it's no fault of theirs. They're willing to go, they're trained and ready to go, and their situation is similar (to me) to an AD soldier who served between 1975 and 2000 and never got the chance to show what they could do.

Legally? It's another matter, and I understand the 180 day requirement for VA benefits. I would support a lower tier of VA support for former Reservists, with something on the state level for NG people. Their service, even if they never went active, is not insignificant. Personally, I'd have no trouble with a former member of the NG, once honorably discharged, getting their 10% off at HD or wherever. But that's HD's call I guess.
 
You impressed me in the Uke War thread.... Couldn't even understand you

I'm not saying I served between '75 and '00. I'm saying that, to me, a reservist's situation is similar to that of a guy who does 25 years or so and never leaves the States.

I think about those USAF missile guys, spending an entire career in a bunker under the earth, waiting for a call that they probably know will never come. Every day. Every year. Strapped into a recliner, watching status lights flash. And their benefits are the same as snake-eaters who spent 20 years doing covert stuff and capping bad guys in Laos or Nicaragua.

Seems weird and arbitrary. No more weird and arbitrary than denying "veteran status" to reservists who served honorably, but through no fault of their own never got deployed.

I also know the Army plays games with this stuff. I was in the Clinton military, and when we deployed to Albania (and later Kosovo) our orders specified exactly 179 days of overseas service, and no more. That way, they didn't need to authorize certain insignia, or pay TDY, or anything else politically inconvenient to the Army. These things are bureaucratic games, very often.
 
It means if your National Guard for 30 years and never mobilize to Active Duty under Title 10 of US Law and spend 180 days on active duty YOU ARE NOT A VETERAN.

There are tons of guardsman who mobilized for GWOT that are Veterans and rightfully so.

This cannot be explained any better over the Internet. You either understand it or you don’t 😀

Edit: It’s 180 consecutive days
You are correct, I mobilized with the 104th Infantry MANG for SFOR-10 and spent just over 180 days in a Combat Zone, September 2001 (just after 9/11) to March 2002 which resulted in my Veteran Status. Bosnia was still designated a Combat Zone at that time. We were at FT.Dix for pre-deployment when 9/11 hit.
 
It means if your National Guard for 30 years and never mobilize to Active Duty under Title 10 of US Law and spend 180 days on active duty YOU ARE NOT A VETERAN.

There are tons of guardsman who mobilized for GWOT that are Veterans and rightfully so.

This cannot be explained any better over the Internet. You either understand it or you don’t 😀

Edit: It’s 180 consecutive days
I have no dog in the fight beyond the general observation that if someone made themselves available to fight for their country, whether they were taken up on it or not doesn't matter. At least to me. They offered. The legalities are probably different. (I also had no idea this was debated)

Milton, speaking on a somewhat different topic, said, "They also serve who only stand and wait."

(thanks for the answer, btw)
 
0%'s are a thing. It's essentially the VA saying "yes it's service connected" and "no, we won't pay you disability but will cover expenses to treat said 0% condition."
They love to give 0% for hearing loss.

“Sorry we made it hard to hear what your wife is saying and causing her to get frustrated at you ‘not listening’, and prevented you from contributing to conversations in crowded noisy settings, but you’re not permanently disabled enough to warrant more than 0%”
 
They love to give 0% for hearing loss.

“Sorry we made it hard to hear what your wife is saying and causing her to get frustrated at you ‘not listening’, and prevented you from contributing to conversations in crowded noisy settings, but you’re not permanently disabled enough to warrant more than 0%”
I don’t know the exact numbers but my father has X% disability due to hearing loss. He is almost completely deaf in one ear and the other has damage as well.

He carried around a card in his wallet saying he has trouble distinguishing female voices like a badge of honor. He’s also made it a sort of life mission when he runs into other guys with disabilities to teach them how to stick it to the VA.
 
They love to give 0% for hearing loss.

“Sorry we made it hard to hear what your wife is saying and causing her to get frustrated at you ‘not listening’, and prevented you from contributing to conversations in crowded noisy settings, but you’re not permanently disabled enough to warrant more than 0%”
I got it for blood pressure. They have some insane criteria to get $ from BP claims on top of it.

They are pretty weird with how they go about claims.
 
I got it for blood pressure. They have some insane criteria to get $ from BP claims on top of it.

They are pretty weird with how they go about claims.
I've got it for chronic congestion (going on 20 years, since breathing in that good stuff in Kuwait/Iraq), loss of sense of smell, and limited range of motion in my left leg.

Basically, anything that doesn't cause you any loss of income, they'll service connect, but give you 0%. None of the jobs I've had required being able to smell things, so they'll acknowledge it, but doesn't earn me any payment.

Still dumb.
 
I have no dog in the fight beyond the general observation that if someone made themselves available to fight for their country, whether they were taken up on it or not doesn't matter. At least to me. They offered. The legalities are probably different. (I also had no idea this was debated)

Milton, speaking on a somewhat different topic, said, "They also serve who only stand and wait."

(thanks for the answer, btw)
I hear you. But you are serving the state, not the country when it comes to the national guard.

Now, because we spent 20 years at war, we mobilized all those guys.
 
I hear you. But you are serving the state, not the country when it comes to the national guard.

Now, because we spent 20 years at war, we mobilized all those guys.
Hardly. Guard guys deploy all the time, particularly in the decade and a half following 9/11. State activations by comparison are very rare.
 
I also know the Army plays games with this stuff. I was in the Clinton military, and when we deployed to Albania (and later Kosovo) our orders specified exactly 179 days of overseas service, and no more. That way, they didn't need to authorize certain insignia, or pay TDY, or anything else politically inconvenient to the Army. These things are bureaucratic games, very ofoften.
They still played those games when I was there. We were paid hostile fire and immenent danger but no combat patch. When you compare it to Iraq or Afghanistan yeah no shit I get why not. But when you compare it to some of the other easy ones it starts getting weird
 
They still played those games when I was there. We were paid hostile fire and immenent danger but no combat patch. When you compare it to Iraq or Afghanistan yeah no shit I get why not. But when you compare it to some of the other easy ones it starts getting weird

Yes, we got no patch either. We got a nifty unit citation, lost a trooper, and had another one shot in the head. We got all the special pays plus a combat zone tax exclusion. We shot at people and got shot at in turn.

But no patch. So that Clinton could say he hadn't sent troops to war.
 
Yes, we got no patch either. We got a nifty unit citation, lost a trooper, and had another one shot in the head. We got all the special pays plus a combat zone tax exclusion. We shot at people and got shot at in turn.

But no patch. So that Clinton could say he hadn't sent troops to war.
I believe with the latest uniform change they put a cut out for some of the Balkan OGs regarding combat patch, you might be one of them. The dates you talk about are in the ballpark from the top of my head.
 
I believe with the latest uniform change they put a cut out for some of the Balkan OGs regarding combat patch, you might be one of them. The dates you talk about are in the ballpark from the top of my head.

I hadn't heard. Not that it would matter to me, anyhow. I can't even fit into my uniforms anymore, let alone rock a right side patch.

If so, it's probably the guys from earlier in the '90s. The Macedonia crowd from the '94-'97 period. While the genocide was still going on next door.

There's zero doubt KFOR was hazardous during that initial entry. But it's hard to make a case for it, given what happened over the past 20 years in Asia. I'm fine with it.
 
They still played those games when I was there. We were paid hostile fire and immenent danger but no combat patch. When you compare it to Iraq or Afghanistan yeah no shit I get why not. But when you compare it to some of the other easy ones it starts getting weird
You are correct, we received combat pay and tax relief but no combat patch. I knew a few soldiers who wore combat patches from serving in Korea in the 70's.
HMMM!
We received NATO medal and Allied Expeditionary Force medal, VFW actually came over and signed up every soldier for a free year of membership.
 
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Forgive my ignorance but I believe you are misinformed about being a Veteran. You need 180 days of active duty service to be a Veteran. No disrespect to your guard service.

Sig won’t transfer shit to MA unless it’s MA compliant, Not even an upper because it has a threaded barrel. I’ve only seen them do a LE exemption.

As far as Glocks go they are illegal in MA and cops get pinched all the time flipping them 🤔🤔🤔🤔
That was true until Obama. I never considered myself a Veteran.
 
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Here’s obamas law. A retiree can call themselves veteran but not have the benefits.
Thanks, I don't expect any benefits. Leave them to the DAV's
 
Someone who serves 4 years of active duty as a personnel clerk in the US is a veteran, but a guardsman with 6+ months of active duty training plus additional months here and there in the field, and 2 week to 30 day partner training rotations OCONUS is not, even if they have more accrued days than someone who serves 4 years active by the time they get out. it’s pretty arbitrary.

That said, when I meet someone who has 20 years in the guard or reserves and hasn’t deployed title 10 anywhere, I’m immediately suspicious. If it’s just 6, luck of the draw.

The guard title 10/title 32 stuff is wild too. For GI bill purposes title 32 doesn’t count. So you have guys who, for example, spend 18 months in army flight school (for the Guard) and because they are federally funded out of rotc have that count as 18 months towards the post 9/11 GI bill… whereas warrants and other officers who commissioned through the state go down there on the states dime under title 32 orders those 18 months wouldn’t count towards the GI bill.

Likewise, someone does 4 years behind a desk in America and gets full gi bill benefits. My reserve unit has dozens get Purple Hearts for being blown up, but because the mobilization was only a year their GI bill benefits are pro-rated against it — granted there are other programs that fund the education of disabled vets.

Lots of strange arbitrary oversights in various laws.

On the combat patch front, they are continuing to expand what can get you one as the conflicts wind down. Gotta keep the recent West Point grads decorated. Everyone gets a trophy.
 
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The point of the post was to find out if Mass dealers gave this deal to those who hold a DD214. I am not a Veteran in respect to active Military people, but was told if I have a DD214 which I do, I can buy these firearms here in Maine, that's it.
 
They love to give 0% for hearing loss.

“Sorry we made it hard to hear what your wife is saying and causing her to get frustrated at you ‘not listening’, and prevented you from contributing to conversations in crowded noisy settings, but you’re not permanently disabled enough to warrant more than 0%”

lol

I'm not service connected for hearing loss.

Only 28 and a half years as an artilleryman and managed to ride in enough noisy flying things without ear pro to accumulate 131 logged jumps. Meanwhile documented hearing issues while on active duty.

Nope, not service connected.
 
I got it for blood pressure. They have some insane criteria to get $ from BP claims on top of it.

They are pretty weird with how they go about claims.

RE the hearing loss topic, it is actually a pain to bump from the 0% to compensated percentages.

Weird or not, 38cfr is pretty transparent.
 
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