I was in the Marines too. I got out in 2003 after iraq, and let me tell you what, you have no idea what you are in for. They might promise you a bonus, but you probably won't see it. Hell they promised me my MOS...its in writing in my contract, and they keep trying to deploy me as an MOS I'm not even qualified in. They won't even send me to MOS school and I rarely get paid for drills. I went 8 months of driving 6 hours round trip to a different armory than I was assigned to, not even to get paid.The gaurd in Hawaii is getting ready for a 2 year tour in Iraq also, some food for thought. You DO NOT want to deploy to Iraq with the Gaurd. Half the gear i was issued was korean war issue(canteen cup had something about the frozen chosin etched on it), and the other half was vietnam issue, my flack came complete with a calendar of how many days whoever had it had left in vietnam. You will have to spend about $2-3K on gear if you want to live. Most of these "soldiers" are 40-50 year old obese e-3/e-4's who would have a heart attack as soon as they got off the plane in kuwait city.