Restructure the Guard

In the New York Times of December 26, 1995, there was a story about how the National Guard lobby and more than two dozen state governors in concert with the sycophants in Congress were fighting a Pentagon plan to eliminate half of 110,000 Army National Guard combat troops thereby saving $1.1 billion a year. The other half of these troops would be converted to support services which the Army desperately needs.

The following day the New York Times had an editorial on the same subject.

In essence, the Pentagon planners want to do what AMAC and The Anglers have been proposing for years. Since most of the National Guard combat units, namely infantry, artillery, and armored units, have not seen combat since WW II, and none were thought fit enough to send to the Persian Gulf even though they were needed, we have long held that the Guard's role should be modified, especially in the post Cold-war period, to one of providing support units, like military police, truck drivers, medical units, logistic experts, fire fighters, maintenance, etc., who were used extensively in the Gulf and who are now being used in Bosnia. (There were a couple of squadrons of Cobra attack helicopters with their maintenance forces sent to the Gulf.)

The Pentagon is now questioning why it is spending more than a billion dollars a year to pay, train, and equip National Guard combat troops when military planners foresee no war big enough or long enough to either need them or to give them the additional training required to make them effective.

"There is a lot of the Army National Guard that's just irrelevant to our strategy," a senior Defense Department official is quoted in the Times. "It's kind of like a welfare program for weekend warriors so guys can earn a little extra pay."

With a surplus of combat power in the Guard and a shortage of support skills in the active-duty Army, a senior Army panel is expected to recommend this month (March) that some combat units be converted to support forces. "We're looking to see how we might make them even more relevant than they are today," said Deborah Lee, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs.

The governors of many states, including Michigan's John Engler, might feel more secure in being able to call on the Guard in their states for riots, floods, and other emergencies. In this sense the Guard may or not be a bargain (for the individual governors), but the NYT argues "what good is a bargain if the bargain is not really needed." For floods, riots, emergencies, why not have troops that are trained for such tasks rather than what they now have? The NYT argues that surely the remainder of the force the Army wishes to retain is adequate for such purposes.

The NYT closes its editorial with the following:

The biggest obstacle to the scaling back of the National Guard is politics. Communities resist the lost income for their guardsmen and are reluctant see armories fall into disuse. The Bush Administration tried and failed to get approval of a plan similar to the one now being considered at the Defense Department. But in the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton signaled his support of the National Guard.
If there were any doubt that the Guard itself prepared to call in its chits, a letter earlier this year from the Guard's lobbying group was instructive. In that letter, Edward J. Philbin, executive director of the National Guard Association of the United States, reminded Defense Secretary William J. Perry that the divisions slated for cutbacks are located in twenty-five states and that a "precipitous restructuring could very well affect the 1996 elections."
But this is a decision that the Pentagon and the Congress ought to make based on budgetary and military considerations, not pork-barrel or interest-group politics. There is room to argue over which Guard units should be cut or reconfigured. But at a time of budgetary problems, it makes no sense for the active-duty Army to shrink at a much faster rate than the Army National Guard. The Administration should boldly take the high ground for the likely battle with Congress.

Governor Engler, commander-in-chief of the Michigan National Guard, serious contender as a vice-presidential nominee on the Republican ticket, and acknowledged budget cutter, should take the lead and offer a proposal to the Pentagon whereby the Michigan National Guard would be converted to support services and that Camp Grayling would be converted to the training of such troops, including the specialized training required for fire fighting, military police, logistics, riot control, and disaster relief.

We don't expect him to do this. But if he were truly a statesman concerned about the welfare of his state and country, he wouldn't hesitate.

History has long proved, most recently during the Persian Gulf War, that the mission of training National Guard combat troops to serve in combat is a complete failure. Those who continue to advocate this pork barrel practice of wasting tax dollars contribute nothing to our defense. Further, it is morally wrong to promote this flawed proposition to the nation and especially to those young men and women who serve in the Guard.

RWOL

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