Gov. Tim Walz spent his weekend more than 6,000 miles away playing trivia, barbecuing hot dogs and hamburgers and talking about the World Cup with Minnesota National Guard troops stationed in Kuwait.

The roughly 100 Minnesota Guard members are there as part of an ongoing mission to establish the safety "and security of the transition of the Iraqi government, and ensuring those entities that want to do harm do not have a chance to regroup," Walz said Monday afternoon, one day after he returned home.

The multiday trip comes just ahead of the holidays, which the Guard members will spend across the world from their families. Minnesota troops currently deployed in the Middle East won't return home until next year.

"These are your neighbors and they've got spouses at home, they've got children and families and they are away from them for the holidays," Walz said, encouraging neighbors and colleagues to say thank you and help military families with things such as shoveling the driveway when it snows.

It's the first trip overseas to visit troops for Walz, who served 24 years in the Guard himself.

Minnesota's 347th Regional Support Group is helping run logistics out of a base in Kuwait, including shipping and contracting for supplies such as food or fuel, said Maj. Gen. Shawn Manke. The 147th Human Resources Company is helping to process people who come in and out of the area. More than two-thirds of the troops are serving their first time overseas.

But the deployment is a return to some normalcy for members of the Guard, who have been called in over the last several years to respond to civil unrest in Minneapolis and take shifts in nursing homes facing dire staffing shortages during the pandemic. Many of the troops now serving overseas first responded to situations closer to home.

"Every time we push the button on the Minnesota National Guard, it has an effect," said Manke, who added that he was initially "adamantly" opposed to putting National Guard troops in nursing homes.

"Some of the conversations I have with the service members, when they were performing that care, they felt value-added. They knew why they were there," Manke said. "Some of them, it's making them want to stay in the Guard longer because they get that sense of being able to work in their community."

Manke hopes the Guard doesn't have to respond to civil unrest anytime soon.

Walz said Guard members deserve Minnesotans' gratitude for all of the ways they've been called into action over the last several years. He's considering new ways to show appreciation and encourage more people to sign up for service in his next two-year budget proposal, which will be released in late January.

This spring, lawmakers passed a package to give bonuses to veterans who served in the post-9/11 era. The state received a flood of applications this summer. Walz said he'd like to expand the list of people who are eligible for those bonuses even further. He's also looking into offering education credits to the children of those who served.