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'Go Guard!' OK, but with what?

Dec-11-2006 » Filed Under: General Military

By Mackenzie M. Eaglen, Record Online

Imagine your employer assigned you to a critical and difficult new assignment. But before you could start, the company took away your computer, your Blackberry and your cell phone. You'd probably wonder if you were being set up for failure.

Well, something similar is happening with our National Guard. According to Lt. Col. Thomas Plunkett III of the Louisiana Army National Guard, his battalion was being called up for deployment to Iraq in 2004 just one month after he had been ordered to give up his machine guns and other equipment to an Arkansas unit that was deploying sooner. This story is all too typical for Army National Guard units being called up for combat missions.

The demands of overseas missions, particularly in Iraq, have badly depleted the Army National Guard's domestic store of vehicles, weapons and communications gear. According to the Congressional Research Service, Guard units responding to Hurricane Katrina did not have enough tactical radios or Humvees adapted for high-water operations because this equipment was in Iraq.

A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates that since 2003, Army National Guard units have left 64,000 items worth $1.2 billion overseas. Transferring equipment from a stateside unit to one about to leave the United States causes a vicious cycle with disastrous effects.

With 53,000 Guard personnel deployed for federal missions and thousands more responding to natural disasters at home, Army National Guard units cannot afford to operate without all of their equipment stateside. Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn, vice chief of the National Guard Bureau and director of the Army National Guard, recently noted "from July 2002 through September 2005, overall unit readiness decreased by 41 percent in order to provide personnel and equipment to deploying units."

Making soldiers familiar with their equipment improves both morale and deployment readiness. To remain a trained and ready force, the Army National Guard needs the right mix of capabilities and as much equipment as possible available in the United States. The Army National Guard, however, lacks an equipment-modernization program designed to meet its unique needs and capabilities.

This was acceptable when the Guard operated mainly as a backup force to active units, typically in the later stages of conflict. Over the past five years, however, the Army National Guard has contributed nearly half of all Army troops on the ground in Iraq and has assumed an increased role in homeland defense.

The common-sense, affordable solution to the problems is the Army's Stryker Brigade Combat Team model. That system, already used by some active Army units, is a wheeled combat force that is highly mobile and transportable. It is fast, maneuverable, and can include large numbers of infantry soldiers, making it well-suited for missions within cities from New Orleans to Baghdad...


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