Confessions of a Weekend Warrior
Thirty-Five Years in the National Guard
Paul “Greg” Smith, McFarland, 2024, 254 pages
Book Review published on: December 12, 2025
Confessions of a Weekend Warrior: Thirty-Five Years in the National Guard is not exactly a military autobiography; instead, it is a collection of episodes told in brief chapters that highlight the long career of an officer in the Massachusetts Army National Guard. Paul “Greg” Smith traces his career from when he joined ROTC midway through his freshman year at Fitchburg State College in 1976 to his retirement as a brigadier general in 2014. The book has little of his life outside of his military career—his wife, children, and civilian career as a public school educator—and appears only to remind readers that he has another life to put on hold for his military duties. While he recounts some amusing anecdotes, the real strengths of the book are the chapters devoted to specific incidents that shaped him, such as responding to snowstorms, ice storms, and strikes of state workers, to performing federal missions such as preparing units for deployment to the Middle East and building the wall on the southern border. The longest chapter involves the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013 and the use of Guard in response to it. Throughout the work, Smith praises those who earned his admiration and highlights events that shaped his own development.
Two broad themes recur throughout this work. One is his own professional growth as he reflects on lessons taught by mentors and subordinates as well as his own reflections on his actions. He pulls no punches when soldiers fail to live up to the highest ideals, with his severest criticisms given to himself. A telling incident occurs during the chapter on the Boston Marathon bombing. The Tsarnaev brothers were identified as the primary suspects, along with the knowledge that at least one was a U.S. citizen. Smith told the J-2, the intelligence section, to gather as much information as they could on the brothers. After giving his order, an Air Force captain, probably from the Massachusetts Air National Guard, explained to him that she could not comply because if the brothers were indeed U.S. citizens, the military was forbidden by law from collecting information on them. Smith dismissed her concerns, explaining that the situation required gathering all that could be known about them. Upon later reflection, he realized the captain was correct and that she showed professional courage by standing up to him, and that he did the wrong thing by dismissing her concerns. This and other incidents demonstrate his ability to reflect on his words and actions and learn from his errors.
The other theme that underlies the book is the increased professionalization of the National Guard during his career. His early reminiscence of attending annual training, what was then often referred to as summer camp, at Fort Drum, New York, involves a lot of beer as well as the middle weekend off. Those traditions ended in the 1980s and 1990s as the impact of the Total Force Policy on the National Guard began to be felt. The changes in the culture of the military Smith observed over the course of his career were not confined to the National Guard. He recalled social events involving strippers during his Transportation Officer Basic Course, a class that included women officers. Recognizing that the Army, including the officer corps, already included homosexuals, he saw the ending of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy as a step in the right direction. He is open about his concerns on racial problems both in the military and in the country at large but makes clear that he sees U.S. military as the institution in the United States that has done the most to address racial issues head on, with loyalty to the unit and to fellow soldiers as powerful tools in fighting prejudice.
This book will benefit not only National Guard officers but perhaps more importantly Regular Army officers. While regulars, guardsmen, and reservists will find much that is familiar with Smith’s story, some elements will be eye opening, especially for regulars. A sea change occurred in the relationship between regulars and National Guardsmen over the past few decades, which is the period covered by this book. Old images of the National Guard as “weekend warriors”; a poorly disciplined and barely trained force with outdated equipment are no longer accurate. The Total Force Policy, followed by Desert Shield/Storm (1990–91) started to change that image. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with assorted missions in places such as Bosnia and Kosovo, changed the National Guard and altered the perception many regulars had of it. That said, a surprising number of Regular Army soldiers, while quite familiar with and used to working with National Guard units while deployed, often have little conception of how the National Guard functions when it is not mobilized. Confessions of a Weekend Warrior shows the professionalism of the National Guard but also the unique challenges that National Guard officers face, aside from the obvious one of trying to balance a civilian career with a military career. Smith makes clear the need for a National Guard officer to be able to navigate the complexities of state government as well as the interactions with the active army as he or she moves into higher ranks. Smith imparts these lessons in an eminently readable and enjoyable account of one man’s successful career spanning more than three decades in the National Guard.
Book Review written by: Barry M. Stentiford, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas