Done, for now.

I'm finished with State Active Duty for the Flood of 2011.

A few things made an impression on me - first, Marcus Tullius Cicero was right (to slightly alter his quote) "For the first need in Domestic Operations is for unlimited money." Sure, he was talking about "war", but he might as well have been talking about disaster response. I wish Illinois was not in such dire straits, when it came to money.

The people of our State are overwhelmingly kind and too generous to the National Guard - when we show up in a n area and people are insisting that we can use any facility, they want to feed our Soldiers and Airmen who have responded and support us... hey, isn't that what we came to do for you?! My face hurt, as I was smiling so hard when I heard from our team in the Old Shawneetown area. The USO of Illinois also sprang into action and was sending items down to the Guardsmen deployed for flood duty.

Oh, and if you are ever passing through Springfield, home of Camp Lincoln, Headquarters of the Illinois National Guard - make sure you stop at Joe Roger's Chili! When they say "hot" they really do mean it.