A Hooah for the Guard

National Guardsman (and woman) from Alabama, Missouri and Louisiana responded quickly to the Gulf of Mexico oil mess, doing the grunt work they always do in the face of disaster.

This includes filling sandbags, dropping large sandbags from helicopters, stringing miles of protective berms and building bridges.

While their fellow Americans took off for a three-day weekend over Memorial Day, Guardsman from Louisiana's 769th Engineer Battalion and the State Aviation Command spent that weekend building sand barriers on Trinity Island, near the mouth of the Mississippi River.

This gives new meaning to the term "weekend warrior."