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The National Guard: Serving Two Masters Geoff Metcalf Good masters generally have bad slaves, and bad slaves have good masters. – Herodotus California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently rejected a request from the Bush administration to send an additional 1,500 National Guard troops to the Mexican border. Although arguably his decision may have been made for the wrong reasons, it was a good call. National Guard troops serve two masters, and both have been very demanding. The Pentagon tasks Guardsmen to meet national force requirements. The governor tasks Guardsmen in the event of statewide emergency (earthquakes, floods, fires, civil disturbance, etc.). Training is critical to citizen soldiers – especially when the likelihood of them being deployed OCONUS (outside the continental United States) to function in their full-time military occupational specialties is inevitable. California has already committed to putting 1,000 troops on the border by July 31. Initially, Schwarzenegger dissed the administration's plan to deploy troops to the border. However, he eventually relented when the Pentagon signed a deal promising to pay for the entire mission. That could exceed $1.4 billion nationally ... but hey, if the feds were paying for it, Arnold apparently could live with it. Schwarzenegger signed an executive order saying he would not authorize the deployment beyond the end of 2008. He reportedly intends for the mission to be carried out mostly by troops who volunteer for the assignment ... and he probably won't lack for volunteers.
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The Bush plan, which called for putting Guardsmen on border duty instead of their annual two- and three-week training exercises, was, and is, counterintuitive, and a flat-out bad idea. Mission-oriented training is imperative to all reserve component units. Once upon a time, reserve component units and individuals (National Guard and Reserve) were used primarily as ‘supplemental' assets. They were used to replace stateside active-duty troops during overseas deployments. However, as times, assets, reduction in forces, and priorities changed, so did the role of the reserve components. Today, reserve component troops are used to ‘complement' active-duty troop strengths. Citizen soliders are no longer ‘backfill,' they are on the front line. Annual training (the two weeks each year of active-duty training) is critical to all reserve component units. Anytime some ‘suit' or chair-bound military bureaucrat replaces training with some ‘hey you' mission, they are denying not only valuable but also necessary training to troops who may well find themselves in ‘the sandpit,' expected to meet or exceed active-duty combat readiness. We are blessed with extraordinary men and women who volunteer to serve in state National Guard units. Many of these citizen soldiers recognize that in the ‘war on terror' they could (and probably will) be called to leave their jobs and family for a lengthy overseas deployment.
Many National Guard troops have already been to Iraq or Afghanistan, multiple times. My old battalion commander recently told me of an E-9 who is over ‘there' on his fifth tour! National Guard commands, and the governors who have command over them, face a genuine, unamusing ‘Catch-22.' Governor Schwarzanegger should anticipate having to activate National Guard troops at some time (sooner rather than later) to deal with statewide emergencies such as earthquake, fire, floods, and civil disturbance. He has a responsibility to the citizens of the state to see to it those assets are available when needed. Conversely, even as Iraq and Afghanistan requirement simmers reserve component commitments, the international geopolitical macro picture suggests that ‘something somewhere' (Iran, North Korea, Syria, India/Pakistan, or even Africa) could require troop activations the Pentagon cannot meet with current force structures. A potential solution to multi-front challenges is one that neither states nor the strategy wonks in the Pentagon are seriously exploring. Increase the size of some states' National Guard Table of Organization and Equipment. Some states that face a disproportionate number of state emergency activations might even explore the benefits of creating disaster mission-oriented special units. A logistics challenge for both states and the feds is funding. Frankly, one of the reasons National Guard troops get federal money is the government investment in the potential of utilizing the mixed-use assets. States benefit from the military table of organization and equipment (airplanes, helicopters, vehicles, radios, etc.) without having to actually pay for it. When state troops are federalized, the Pentagon gets to realize its investment. States score if the Pentagon isn't using reserve component resources. However, when (like now) state resources ARE being tasked by the Pentagon, states can (and will) be challenged with the potential of a statewide emergency with insufficient resources. If states were to (wrongly) try to opt out of federal commitments, they would reasonably face the loss of federal money and equipment. What to do? What to do? Governors won't like hearing this, but states need to spend more money on the National Guard. Geoff is an author and talk show host. He is a ninth-generation commissioned officer in the U.S. armed services, a former Green Beret, and retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. Geoff hunts down the stories the rest of the media ignores and exposes them for public scrutiny. He is also editor of CalNews.com.
Editor's note:
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