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National Guard stretched to the limit
(David Wood and Harry Esteve, The Oregonian, June 12, 2005)
Thrown into a fast-paced new era of fighting insurgents abroad and protecting neighbors from terrorists at home, the Army National Guard is hanging on by its fingertips. . . . It provides half of the Army's combat power and is the United States' primary terrorism response team. But its battalions are struggling to scrape up enough soldiers and hand-me-down equipment to meet overseas deployment orders. Recruiting has fallen behind, and seasoned soldiers are quitting in frustration. . . . Internal Guard documents tell the story: All 10 of its special forces units, all 147 military police units, 97 of 101 infantry units and 73 of 75 armor units cannot, because of past or current mobilizations, deploy again to a war zone without reinforcements. The Guard needs a staggering $20 billion worth of equipment to sustain its operations, a bill Washington may balk at paying. . . . Any new crisis -- a bloody escalation overseas or a series of domestic terrorist attacks -- could find the Guard unable to respond and could put the United States at risk. . . . The Guard is losing soldiers and cannot attract enough recruits to replace them. And the normally dependable flow of soldiers moving from active duty into the National Guard has slowed dramatically. . . . "One can conclude," said Brig. Gen. Bill Libby, commander of the Maine National Guard, "that we're going to run out of soldiers." . . . [COMMENT by Lorenzo: I say BRAVO! If we run out of soldiers there are only two good options left to the Bush Junta: 1) stop attacking other countries, or 2) reinstate the draft. While I prefer the first option, a draft could provide the incentive for college students to get off their asses and get involved. Why there aren't more (and larger) demonstrations against the war on college campuses I can't understand. Let's hope it isn't because today's youn'g people have become so dumbed-down that they can't see what is going on. Because if that's the case, our opportunity to change the course of events in this sad nation could well be lost.] . . . Many Guard families, fed up with long, unanticipated combat tours, are opting out. Employers are pressed to hold jobs for deployed guardsmen, as the law requires. Governors are demanding that their Guard units remain home. And recruiters are coming up against a new impediment: Parents who once encouraged their children to join the supposedly safe National Guard are growling at recruiters to stay away. . . . The Army National Guard's 331,019 soldiers -- the most recent count -- are full-time civilians who serve part time in uniform. For many, the Guard was historically a comfortable, sleepy backwater, famous as a dodge from the more dangerous, go-to-war, active duty military. . . . Guard units typically met one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer, using worn-out gear, such as field telephones from the Korean War, that the Army no longer wanted. Their wartime mission, as reinforcements for a large-scale conflict, seemed remote. . . . But the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks sent the Guard into a frenzied pace that has yet to let up. . . . Internal National Guard documents show that in December, 86,455 soldiers were available for duty. As of April 30, the number had shrunk to 74,519 soldiers available for global deployment. The current need for National Guard soldiers in Iraq alone is 32,000, and tens of thousands of others are required for missions in 83 countries worldwide. . . . Two reasons for the squeeze: a shortfall in recruiting and a dramatic drop in the number of active duty soldiers switching to the Guard. In October and November, the Guard missed its monthly recruiting goals by big margins, gaining only two-thirds of the enlistees needed. . . . In extreme cases, the Pentagon can deploy Guard soldiers with less than 18 months of service remaining. When the clock runs out, they are kept on active duty on "stop-loss" orders. Currently, 27,495 Army National Guard soldiers are being involuntarily kept on active duty, a status that can last months. . . . Inevitably, this takes its toll: Guardsmen are fed up and quitting. . . . In Virginia, Republican Rep. Tom Davis faulted the Pentagon for what he thinks was a failure to adequately staff and equip the Guard for its new role in combat. Now that bill is coming due, he said. . . . "We brought these folks into a war, and we were not logistically prepared to do it," Davis said. . . . That situation may become more pointed in the months ahead. Demands for military manpower for the global war on terrorism will remain high or even increase, Pentagon officials say. There will be no respite for the Guard. . . . "We are going to have to ask them to do more than we have in the past," said Thomas Hall, assistant defense secretary for reserve affairs.

posted by Lorenzo 7:13 AM