Guard works to balance state, federal missions

  • Published
  • By Donna Miles
  • American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON (AFPN) --  Unlike their active and reserve counterparts, Army and Air National Guardsmen can be called on to serve two different masters: their state governors and their commander in chief.

Serving as state militias, they are available at the bidding of their governors in the event of emergencies, insurrections, attacks or acts of nature, such as last fall's multiple hurricanes in Florida. But guardsmen also play an increasingly important role in national defense, with some 100,000 of them deployed overseas in 44 countries, including Iraq, where they make up 34 percent of the U.S. forces.

Balancing the demands of these dual missions takes careful coordination to ensure no state governor is left short in the event of an emergency because the state's Guard force is overextended overseas, said Army Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau.

General Blum said state governors have demonstrated overwhelmingly that they understand their National Guard members are needed to reinforce the active Army and Air Force overseas, particularly during the war on terror.

What they don't want, he said, is to have their states left "uncovered" because they've contributed too many troops to the national mission.

Officials have made a concerted effort to strike a balance between Guard members deployed overseas, those preparing for deployment, and those available to carry out state missions, General Blum said.

"We've been pretty successful at doing this," he said. All but two states are now "in very, very good shape," to carry out state missions, with at least 50 percent and in some cases, more than 70 percent of their Guard forces at home.

Only New Jersey and Vermont fall short of that goal, he said, with 48 percent of their Guard members available to the governor. Guard officials are working to increase those figures, the general said.

It's a delicate balancing act, General Blum explained. Rather than taking "once giant slice" out of one state, it means "taking a smaller piece out of two or three states" for the federal mission.

But it's more than just a numbers game, he said. "It means ensuring that we have the right capabilities in the right numbers in the right places, distributed all around the country so that each of the governors would have the essential capabilities they need.”

One problem in this balancing act, General Blum said, is that deploying guardsmen often are required to leave their equipment overseas when they return home. It's a concept he said he understands and fully supports, because it saves time, money and pressure on a highly complex logistics system.

The problem, the general said, is that it leaves the states with Guard troops akin to firemen in an empty firehouse -- ready to respond if needed, but lacking in the necessary equipment.

"When these people come home and they're back here, they have to have the equipment they need to be able to respond," General Blum said.

The general said he's pushing this point within the Defense Department so he can keep his promise to the state governors that he'll ensure they have a ready force on hand to handle state missions, if needed.

This, Blum said, will help ensure that Guard units are again "trained, ready on arrival and equipped — not only to be able to go back to Iraq again and do the job, but to be able to respond in case they are needed to support the homeland security operation."