Arizona National Guard Muster

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For the first time in over 100 years, the Arizona National Guard held a muster, with over 5,000 troops from 29 Arizona communities gathering to honor veterans from the past 13 years of battle in the Middle East. We’ll show you the event, which was held at Sun Devil Stadium on Pearl Harbor Day.

Ted Simons: On Pearl Harbor Day, the Arizona National Guard held a muster to honor veterans from the past 13 years of battle in the Middle East. The event was held at Sun Devil Stadium, where over 5,000 troops from 29 Arizona communities literally covered the entire football field. Photographer Gabriel Rodriguez was there.

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Ciara Laboy: Today, we are having a muster. The muster is just basically a gathering of service members. In this case it's for Arizonans to come and witness military service members and the gathering in military formation.

Jason Handa: The first time we mustered was in 1865 when arizona's national guard became the Arizona's national guard. It's a pretty exciting time. We're going to have both the army and the air portion of the Arizona guard out here, all really in one place, brothers and sisters at arms for everyone to see. Arizona has a very, very long military history. Over 600,000 veterans that live in the state of Arizona right now. You're going to see a lot of pride out on this field today. You're going to see units from all over the state of Arizona from Tucson all the way up to Flagstaff coming together as one.

Ciara Laboy: National guard members both air and army in formation, conducting, you know, pretty much what we do. Our military professionalism, dedication and commitment to Arizona.

David Sanders: What we're doing is just to show the community what kind of forces we have. The pride that we have in our service. And also get to give them an opportunity to come out and see what we have to offer. It's an historical event, to be part of something like this, it's once in a lifetime.

Ted Simons: Also honored at the event the families of seven veterans who lost their lives in the last 13 years. That is it for now. I'm Ted Simons. Thank you so much for joining us. You have a great evening.

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