Template talk:PD-USGov-Military-National Guard

Avoid whitespace

{{Edit request}} Please close the line break after "{{Documentation}}</noinclude>" to avoid white space in when in use. Thanks. — Huntster (t @ c) 13:29, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for your help, Huntster. whym (talk) 02:07, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Was that really caused by the line break or by the duplicate noinclude tag? --Denniss (talk) 08:40, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I think the line break caused it, at least that's what I see in File:2-142nd Field Artillery Convoy duirng Operation Desert Storm.jpg when I compare two versions of the template using the preview function. whym (talk) 10:28, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it was the line break. I tested elsewhere when I first discovered it. The noinclude and includeonly tags themselves are effectively invisible in terms of affecting display. — Huntster (t @ c) 15:28, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Problems with this template

See also discussion here, and for reference, information on Title 32 orders in this document.

Basically, if the soldier is on state Title 32 orders or in an Inactive Duty Training status, which is the vast majority of National Guard soldiers the vast majority of the time, this tag does not apply. They are state employees, under the authority of the governor, and their works are not public domain. If however they are on Title 10 federal orders, such as in the case of a major natural disaster or wartime deployment, then they are federal employees operating under the authority of the President, and this tag does apply. The problem is, for the majority of cases, we're going to have no idea what the status of the soldier is, unless an image obviously depicts a war zone or major natural disaster and they are from out-of-state.

This was created apparently using information from the National Guard Bureau website. That's fine, because the NGB is a federal agency. But below that agency are 50+ state, district, or territorial agencies and those every day soldier are generally not going to be federal employees. So, we need to amend this tag, and...I have no idea what would be the best way to deal with the 23k images that currently use it. GMG^talk 16:57, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

@GreenMeansGo: I read the other discussion on the village pump. I know nothing about this but based on the documents presented it seems like employees of the National Guard are federal employees, and also they might do work for states in down time when they are not doing federal projects. The source text we are using is National Guard Fact SheetArmy National Guard (FY2005). Here are statements that it makes which I feel are supporting evidence that these are federal employees:

• "each Soldier holding membership in both the National Guard of his or her state and in the U.S. Army or the U.S. Air Force."
• "place a soldier in a full-time duty status under the command and control of the State but directly funded with Federal dollars"
• "...serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom... under Title 10 or Title 32 (federal and state orders)."

For that last one, it seems like some people serve overseas in wars on either Title 10 or Title 32 orders, and it is not as you described that necessarily one is only state and the other is only federal.

I am not seeing any strong assertions that when National Guard employees are doing state projects, then they definitely are not federal employees. The program seems as if they they always look to the federal government as their authority, which is not a commitment that a state employee makes as part of their job. I cannot imagine this group as only state employees when they agree to have their state projects overridden with federal projects at any time. If anything, they seem like dual federal and state employees.

To use this public domain tag the evidence we need is proof that the media is coming from a federal employee. We have that proof. We also have some confusing alternate explanations about an odd dual position for federal government and state, but if it is a dual role, the federal role overrides regarding copyright and that media is public domain.

Thoughts? And especially, do you think that more recent documentation exists? This 2005 document is from the time before people thought about online media. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:46, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

It's...complicated and I'm probably not explaining it very well. I realize "I've spent my entire adult life involved in military human resources" isn't a very good source here. But I will try to find something that explains it more clearly. GMG^talk 13:51, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

How do they get paid and where does the money come from? Are they eligible for services from the VA and burial at Arlington National Cemetery?   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 15:58, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Everyone gets paid through Defense Finance and Accounting Services. If I have to submit an adjustment for someone's pay, I have to submit it through DFAS, regardless of their status. But if I put someone in for a promotion, which lets me pay them more, or put someone in for an award, which makes it easier to promote them, it normally goes through Brigade to (in my case) Frankfort, Kentucky and the state Adjutant General (a two-star General). But that's a bureaucratic issue. States maintain their own Divisional level bureaucracy. Normally the command structure that would govern ~10k to 30k Soldiers for active duty. But even for active duty, a Division doesn't process its own pay, because DFAS does it for the entire armed services.

But if I go to Afghanistan, I do it under the authority of the President. The Governor can't send me internationally to a combat zone. But when I go to training, and teach my soldiers how to fix someone's pay, I do it under the authority of the Governor. If I spend my entire career and just train my Soldiers here in Kentucky, and never deploy to a combat zone, I am normally not considered a veteran, for most anything other than eligibility for VA home loans, if I have I believe six years of honorable service. I would not be eligible to receive actual health care from a VA hospital, unless I have 180 days of deployment in support of a contingency operation or a qualifying injury incurred during a deployment under the authority of the President, and I would not be eligible for burial at Arlington unless I had at least one day of active duty not-for-training service (meaning not for schools or for Initial Entry Training). Sorry for the long answer, but it's a long bureaucratic question when you unpack it. GMG^talk 07:24, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I think this tag should be made more clear that it just applies to federal employees. States would control the copyright for any state employees. The National Guard Bureau is a federal agency, and I believe many regular military personnel are assigned to National Guard duty (they would still be federal employees I'm pretty sure), but anyone else just working for a state's national guard would not come under this tag. If there are units called up to federal active duty, they would likely be federal employees for that period, so photos taken as part of duties in that situation would probably fall under this tag. But other ones would be case-by-case, finding out if the individual in question was a federal employee or not. I'm pretty sure there have been discussions on this in the past. I think there was one case where an Air Force photographer was assigned to a state national guard's publicity arm, and we kept those, but it's not *any* state national guard worker. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:52, 24 August 2018 (UTC)