WASHINGTON - The chief of the National Guard Bureau thanked the NAACP on July 18 for its help in recruiting minorities and for making the National Guard a better organization.
LTG H Steven Blum made his remarks during his keynote address to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's 31st annual Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Awards Dinner. The dinner was held during the NAACP’s national convention.
"Today, minorities account for about 20 percent of our total Guard force, and females account for about 14 percent of our total Guard force," said Blum, who received the 2006 NAACP Meritorious Service Award at the event. Established in 1975 by the NAACP's Armed Services Veterans Affairs Department, the award is presented annually to a serviceman or -woman in a policy-making position for the highest achievement in military equal opportunity.
"The NAACP helped us reach out into American communities and helped many understand the myriad benefits and opportunities in service with the National Guard," Blum told the more than 400 military people and civilians who attended. "As I stand before you here this evening, we owe you a debt of gratitude and need your continued support. It's critically important that the Guard look like America. If it does not, it is not truly America's National Guard.
"We need your help in continuing to keep our young men and women free of drugs, violence and other activities that would prevent them from joining the National Guard," said Blum, who holds a master's degree from Baltimore's Morgan State University, a historically black university.
He said the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard offer the greatest opportunity for the youth of America. "You put them in there and there's great pressure to keep them drug-free, not to abuse alcohol, and they teach them character and values," Blum said.
Blum compared the military services' capabilities to the strength of diversity in America. When the services work individually, they're good, but when they work together, they're unbeatable, he said.
"That's the same thing with race and diversity," Blum noted. "The strength of this nation is that it's not homogeneous. We don't all look alike. We don't all think alike. We don't all play alike. We don't all have the same physical attributes."
The smooth-headed general drew laughter and applause when he said, "Some of us are taller, and some of us can grow hair."
But more applause erupted when he introduced six wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. "They would go back and do it again," Blum said. "Some have lost eyes and limbs, and they would go back and do it again.
"Those are the kind of young men and women you're getting in the armed forces today," he continued. "It's an all-volunteer force. Nobody has had to serve in the last 35 years that didn't want to serve. And in the last five years, anybody that has joined the Guard or any of the armed forces know it's not a question of if you're going, it's when you're going and how often you're going and to what new place [you're] going."
Blum noted that the National Guard is deployed worldwide, continuing to fight the global war on terrorism, helping to protect the southwest border and preparing for a pandemic, hurricanes and disaster relief.
He said the Guard is better prepared today than it was for Hurricane Katrina a year ago. "We are constantly applying lessons learned, and we have more troops available, more equipment and a wealth of more experience," the general noted.
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Blum was the third National Guard Bureau chief to receive the NAACP’S Meritorious Service Award. Lt. Gen. Russell Davis was so honored in 1999, and Lt. Gen. John Conaway received the award in 1992.
The association also presented its Benjamin L. Hooks Distinguished Service Award to Felton Page, the National Guard Bureau’s director of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights.