If 19-year-old Stephen Long of Sharonville had been born 30 years earlier, the decision to wear the military uniform he wears today might have been made for him by someone else.

        His Uncle Sam, that is.

        But, to the young Ohio Air National Guard member, the military draft is a page in a high school history book. The draft was the source of so much anxiety for young men of that generation, the hand that lifted thousands of them out of their homes and school to go halfway around the world to fight and sometimes die.

        The idea that was so prevalent then, that National Guard service was something you did to avoid the draft and hide from war, seems odd to him now.

        “I know what I've gotten myself into,” said Mr. Long, a senior airman at the 123rd Air Control Squadron in Blue Ash, a unit that could be activated soon for the U.S. war on terrorism.

        “When I joined up a year ago, I did because it was the only way I could go to college,” he said, referring to the guard's principal carrot-on-a-stick for potential recruits — college tuition money.

        “I guess I thought the most that could happen was I'd have to help clean up a flood,” Mr. Long said. “I know better now.”        

President was in Guard

        The American people know better now as well, it seems. Since the Persian Gulf War 10 years ago, when the American military force included 235,322 Guard and reserve members, the idea of Guard service as a refuge from the dangers of war has melted away.

        It took a long time, years after the military draft ended in the 1970s.

        Politicians of the baby boom generation have been paying the price, fairly or unfairly, for joining the Guard during Vietnam.

        Dan Quayle's nomination as the GOP vice presidential candidate in 1988 was nearly derailed by charges that he avoided the war by using his family's pull to get into the Indiana National Guard.

        Even President Bush — the man now calling Guardsmen and reservists to duty — had his Texas Air National Guard service criticized, with claims he was there because his father was a Texas congressman.        

A paycheck and a meal

        The Guard, the conventional wisdom of the late '60s and early '70s went, was safe haven for the wealthy and privileged.

        Ted Gardner, a Hyde Park resident and military historian, said that Vietnam was not the only time in the nation's history Guard service was looked down upon by many Americans.

        “I can remember as a kid, growing up in the '20s and '30s, people going into the National Guard just so they could get a paycheck and a meal,” said Mr. Gardner, a native veteran of World War II. “It was a refuge.”

        Maj. Gen. John H. Smith, who has commanded Ohio's 15,000-member guard since being appointed Ohio adjutant general in January 1999 by Gov. Bob Taft, understands that many Americans had a bad perception of the Guard for many years, but believes that has changed completely. '

        “The end of the draft, world events had a lot to do with it,” said Maj. Gen. Smith, a former combat fighter pilot.

        In the Persian Gulf War, Maj. Gen. Smith said, Americans “could see guardsmen going into harm's way by the thousands.”

        Today, the Guard and reserves make up nearly half of U.S. military personnel.

        “It would be difficult to have a major military operation without Guard participation,” Maj. Gen. Smith said.        

Citizen-soldiers

        The change in public perception of Guard duty, Maj. Gen. Smith said, is good, too, because it gets the National Guard back to its original idea — an organized militia of citizen-soldiers ready to serve the nation in times of war.

        “We are a militia nation,” the adjutant general said. “This country has had a longstanding aversion to large standing armies in times of peace. We believe in citizens being willing to take up arms.”

        It is exactly what motivates many Guard members, beyond the obvious benefits of college tuition and learning skills that can be used in civilian life.

        “I know why I am here,” said 21-year-old Senior Airman Jesse Clark of the 123rd Air Control Squadron.

        “Yes, I can learn something I can use later and I can get all the benefits,” said the 21-year-old airman from London, Ohio, who attends the University of Cincinnati.

        I “But I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't want to serve. I wouldn't do this if I didn't love my country.”

        Nick Livingston, a 28-year-old senior airman from Forest Park, said no one joins the Guard “just to dig foxholes.”

        “You can learn a lot that will help you through life and and get paid to go to college,” he said. “But you have to understand that this is serious business. You can be called to duty. You can be sent overseas. You can be in a war.”

        Mr. Livingston said he talks to many young guardsmen — 18, 19, 20 years old — who signed up for their one weekend a month and tuition money and “it never occurred to them there was anything else to it.

        “It will now.”

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