Jennifer Barnhill is a columnist for Military.com writing about military families.
Despite making headlines for helping after the catastrophic flooding in Texas or being politicized as President Donald Trump deploys it to police U.S. cities, the National Guard remains a mystery to both civilians and the active-duty force. However, as our nation increasingly calls upon the Guard, we need to better understand our “always ready” force, or it may not be ready when we need it.
“I was going to pick up a prescription that I needed, and they were like, ‘Your insurance isn't working’. And I was like, ‘What do you mean it's not working? It's Tricare,” said Emily Schmidt, whose spouse flies Black Hawk helicopters for the Maryland National Guard. They started by calling Tricare, who directed them to the personnel database, the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System, or DEERS, where staff told them they couldn’t help because his unit hadn't processed his orders properly.
Schmidt’s family was dropped from Tricare insurance because his new orders hadn’t been added to the system correctly, a particularly onerous issue for Guardsmen because their status and orders change regularly, causing them to have to pay out of pocket for medications during these transitions.
Despite representing 21% of the Defense Department’s total military force and more than 34% of the Army as of 2023, the challenges faced by those in the Guard are less visible, and often complicated. Unlike active-duty troops, who receive all their orders from the federal government, National Guard orders typically come directly from the governor of the state where they are assigned. Guardsmen get to “homestead,” but if they live far from their assigned state, they may find themselves away from available resources. They also have to balance the demands of working for a civilian employer, the state and the federal government when called upon to serve under federal orders.
There are three main types of National Guard duty statuses:
- Title 10 – Federal control and funding, used for overseas deployments, combat operations, or other federal missions; eligible for full federal benefits and subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
- Title 32 – State control but federally funded; covers drills, annual training, homeland defense missions, and full-time Guard roles; federal benefits apply.
- State Active Duty – State control and funding; used for state missions like disaster relief; state benefits only, not subject to the Posse Comitatus Act.
The complex set of statuses gets further complicated by the irregular nature of Guard funding.
“They'll say, ‘We're going to hire you for a year, but your orders are not cut for the year because of the way money is dispersed,” said Lainey Crown, National Guard spouse and mental health clinician/licensed professional clinical counselor. “Every time you get put on these new orders, somebody has to go in and push a button to say that you're eligible for Tricare. But that does not always happen.”
The Crown family had a six-day lapse in coverage, during which time one of their kids needed to have surgery. A few months later, they received a $20,000 bill. While the error was eventually corrected, it was not easy to identify who was the right person to fix the problem.
“There have been times if Patrick were to be in a car accident and killed today, and I would have to notify his unit, I don't know who to call,” said Crown, referring to her husband.
Because families can live anywhere, Crown has lived in North Carolina, Georgia and now Kentucky, while her spouse worked for the Maryland and now Alabama Army National Guard units. As a result, Crown has found herself far from available resources and, because they didn’t live near their unit, she did not know who to call for help when paperwork was not processed properly.
“The problem with it stopping and starting again is usually – and I'd say at least half the time – there's an error,” said Hope Daupert, who was named the 2025 AFI National Guard Spouse of the Year for her work educating Guardsmen about accessing life insurance, another area where lapses can occur due to changing statuses. “I think at this point, everybody's just so used to it. Nobody really complains about it anymore.”
Those potential lapses may have an impact on military readiness, according to advocates.
“We need to give National Guardsmen consistent health care because we require them to be always ready,” said Julian Plamann, deputy director of legislative affairs for the National Guard Association for the United States (NGAUS), who also serves in the Maryland Army National Guard. “The more that we use the National Guard, the more we're going to have to think about these benefits.”
NGAUS is one of the organizations that has aggressively advocated for military families. It has supported the Healthcare for Our Troops Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation that would give Guardsmen and reservists “premium-free/zero cost sharing medical coverage for Selected Reserve members eligible for Tricare Reserve Select (TRS).” The legislation would also allow Guardsmen to purchase care for family members, reducing gaps in coverage.
“When service members sign up to serve their country, it’s our duty to support them. That includes providing access to comprehensive health care,” said one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., in an email to Military.com. “Extending Tricare to all service members not only does right by our troops and their families, it also is a common-sense investment in our military readiness.”
The legislation would do more than minimize gaps in coverage: It seeks to improve readiness.
According to NGAUS, an estimated 130,000 Guardsmen and reservists are currently without health care.
“A lot of times, they wait to go on orders so that they can fix any health issues free of charge,” said Plamann. When deployment notices are as short as 24 hours, these Guardsmen aren’t physically prepared to deploy. “Our medical readiness numbers for our units are very low.”
Plamann said that some version of this legislation has been proposed annually for the past 10 years, but has not seen progress in Congress. Plamann believes there is hesitation due to the costs involved. “To give National Guard and reserve health care coverage annually would cost about $700 million,” she said. This would amount to roughly .07 percent of the proposed $925 billion military budget. "For how much the nation relies upon the Guard, that's worth it.”
But cost may not be the only obstacle. Many Guard families have said they’re hesitant to raise their hands and ask for help, fearing they will be seen as taking resources away from active-duty families.
At the same time, Guardsmen and their families are more and more in the political crosshairs.
The National Guard has been increasingly called upon by Trump, sometimes in more common natural disaster response roles, as in their activation after the recent floods in Texas, but also for what are seen as politically motivated reasons, like being mobilized to Los Angeles following protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the more recent mobilization to Washington, D.C.
“People are so emotional about it that they don't see the person or the families behind it,” said Schmidt. “The service member might not agree with the things that are happening, but they still have a duty. … They still have a responsibility [to follow orders].”
If they are in the crosshairs nationally, Guardsmen are seen differently locally.
“There is beauty with being National Guard,” said Courtney Deady, Ohio National Guard spouse and military family advocate. “We're able to have our homes in the places that we've grown up. … I live a block away from my parents.” This sense of community isn’t just felt by the families; Guardsmen experience it too.
Deady recalls when her husband’s Guard unit came to the aid of their local community after tornadoes demolished buildings and homes in their Ohio town. “Within two hours of confirmation, our guys were on site, with our heavy equipment, with everything. So if it wasn't for the National Guard, we would still be cleaning up after this.”
As the National Guard is increasingly called upon to serve, I’ve wondered, why are our conversations limited to what they are being asked to do rather than what we can do for them?
Instead of accepting system failure as the status quo and blaming Guardsmen for the actions of politicians, we should be asking how we can improve National Guard quality of life, just as we did for active-duty families. We are all part of the military.
