May Retiree's Corner Published April 25, 2015 By Robert (Bob) Barkalow Jr. Master Sgt. (Retired) MCENTIRE JOINT NATIONAL GUARD BASE, S.C. -- Our April 7th Luncheon was a success, we had around 50 folks there which included about a half dozen or so female retirees, which was less than I hoped for. We had three speakers that included an appeal for our folks to either volunteer or know of someone who would be interested in serving as a Guardian Ad Litem for children. We also had Nia McCray, a Veteran Advisor specifically for all current and former National Guard members. She may be a valuable resource to us in the future. If she doesn't know the answer to any questions you have as a retiree, she will find out who can answer it by researching and getting back to you. Her office phone number is 803-299-4283 or her email address is Nia.Mccray@sebapro.com if you have any questions or concerns. Lastly, we had Lt. Col. John Wilcox, one of our pilots, who also wears another hat as SCANG's Inspector General. While on active duty he did this for a living. He related to us that the Air Force found out they were inspecting units to death and needed to back off. The inspectors were inspecting the inspectors, like a dog chasing its tail. Now the commanders are to rely more on self-inspections like it was years ago. Personally this makes much more sense and common sense is prevailing. McEntire History: The 2nd group and last group of 2012 Retirees to be honored are as follows: Lt. Col. Michelle Galarneau; Chief Master Sgt. Russell Oswald; Senior Master Sgts. John Vansickle, William 'Brad' Gibson, Dennis Copeland, David Brabham, and Candace Cox; Master Sgts. Timothy Bowers, Randal Christianson, Shane Guyett, and Kenneth Rose; Tech. Sgts. Dedria Lykes, Antorrus Dodson, and Staff Sgt. David Lee. Female Retirees, anybody have an idea how many that have retired thus far for the entire 68 years of SCANG history? By my count, as of now we have right at 100 of women retirees, with more to come. Just looking at the trend, there are more females that have and are entering service for our country, which includes the SCANG. I believe I read that an approximate 16-18 percent of our military are women, and again the trend appears to be rising. Another interesting number is the military comprises of 0.46 percent of our population, less than a half percent and declining, based on political decisions and sequestration at this moment. An analogy to all this is that we had about 14 percent of our population in the military during the WWII era, with a population of about 150 million people back then. Some information found stated over 150,000 women helped out by joining the military. Of course it is hard to imagine, but many of the civilian force participated in the war effort and worked hard as the "Rosie Riveteers", and essential workers in all fields making planes, ships, tanks, bombs and transportation. We don't have that now, but we do have contractors who make up for the lack of military personnel, and ultimately this costs us tax payers more. For the month of May our Luncheon is on the 5th, Cinco de Mayo, I'll check and see if the NCO Club will serve us Mexican food? Anyway, we will have our Luncheon on the 5th at our usual time of 1200 at the Fort Jackson NCO Club. Also, it will be time for our famed raffle. I have been trying to do a raffle about every three months to help augment our coffers. Right now we have a little over $400 in our treasury. I hope to see many of you at our next Luncheon, bring a spouse, guest, or better yet another retiree, male or female. Also, historically on May 5th, was the fall of Corregidor in the Philippines. General Wainwright surrenders the last American troops in 1942. He took part in the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945 and he was literally a skeleton, so he went through some rough POW life.