One Weekend a Month… My Ass!: Twenty Years Serving in the U.S. Army National Guard 1992–2012

One Weekend a Month… My Ass! takes you on an up-and-down journey through the interesting military life of the author, Robert Pepin. It encompasses twenty years of service in the U.S. Army National Guard. Although you may not perceive it as ordinary, he is a humble man, so in his opinion, it is quite ordinary. This 600-plus-page book has been broken down into five distinct phases. Phase 1 starts at the beginning: When Robert Pepin decides to join the military, shortly after his brother Dave did. First comes basic training in Kentucky, then Advanced Individual Training (AIT) in Virginia, and time spent in the Massachusetts National Guard as a generator mechanic. It finishes up with Pepin transferring to Rhode Island as a forward observer. Phase 2 describes everything about Pepin's first deployment in 2003 as a military police officer (MP). It starts with training at Fort Drum, in upstate New York, before flying off to Fallujah, Iraq with the 115th MP Company as combat support for 220th MP Company, 3rd Infantry Division, and 3rd Armored Cavalry. Some but not all missions detailed in Phase 2 are house raids, convoy security details, traffic control points, and security for the CENTCOM commander. Phase 3 is a short section covering three years of annual training between deployments, which also includes accounts of the St. Barbara award and the Rhode Island air show. Phase 4 is the largest phase in the book. Pepin's second deployment is served with the 1/103rd Field Artillery. They start training on a mock Forward Operating Base (FOB) at Fort Dix, in New Jersey. Then off to Baghdad, Iraq for detainee operations missions, which involve the care and custody of Sunni and Shia juveniles. Lastly, Phase 5 is much like Phase 3, describing those wonderful annual training exercises, and closing with a brief description of Pepin's retirement at the final drill in September of 2012. Oh, and about the title: One stereotypical name for National Guard soldiers is "Weekend Warriors," implying that all they contribute to the nation is a measly one weekend a month of time, yet here was our soldier Pepin in Iraq, away from his family, living in miserable conditions, being shot at by everything from bullets to rockets. So the graffiti on the wall in Fallujah rang true for him: One Weekend a Month… My Ass