Reserve forces lack money to train, panel hears
Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006
SAN ANTONIO — The top commanders of each National Guard and Reserve branch told a congressional commission Wednesday that money needs to be shifted to training and equipment to meet the demands being placed on Guard and Reserve forces.
That view was repeated by the National Guard and Reserve chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, who warned that training and equipment are keys to retaining forces at a time when the recruiting pool is smaller than ever.
“We are an operational force now and we should be funded accordingly,” said Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, chief of the Army Reserve.
The issue concerns not just raw dollars, Stultz said. It’s also a matter of where the money is allocated.
The message sent in Wednesday’s hearing was clear: The nation’s Ready Reserve is not as ready as it needs to be because of equipment shortages and because it is more in demand than ever before.
The comments were just what the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves came to San Antonio to hear.
The commission was created through the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act in 2005 to study and recommend changes in law and policy affecting the National Guard and Reserve in regard to mission readiness, equipment, training and compensation.
U. S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., co-sponsored the bill that created the commission.
The commission’s findings will be forwarded to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
While readiness to deploy is the dominant focus in today’s military, the Guard and Reserve chiefs warned the commission that the Department of Defense’s goal to train troops as they fight is not universal.
Massive personnel cuts are under way in the Air Force, with more than 40, 000 active-duty personnel slated for cuts and with a new directive to the Air National Guard to cut 14, 000. Lt. Gen. Craig McKinley, director of the Air National Guard, told the commission that his orders are to reduce the budget by $ 1. 8 billion and the recommendation is to do it through personnel.
“We’re going to draw the line on end strength and pay the bill a different way,” McKinley said of finding ways to cut the budget without cutting people.
“There’s a lot of pain to go around,” added Lt. Gen. John Bradley, Air Force Reserve chief, who is also facing cuts of several thousand airmen.
Reserve forces are facing cuts of more than just people, however.
Equipment such as weapons and vehicles are being left in Kuwait and Iraq, transferred directly to the units rotating in. That means that Reserve and Guard units have little equipment upon their return home — and much of what they do have is outdated.
“I have soldiers coming back without equipment to train with,” Stultz, the chief of the Army Reserve, said.
He said many units are training with deuce-and-a-half trucks, when those are not even allowed to be deployed in the current wars. The only trucks in use are 5-tons and a new version that many have yet to see, let alone learn to drive.
New equipment is fielded to the Guard and Reserve units over time, but much of it is then transferred to other units preparing to deploy.
The Arkansas National Guard has been shifting equipment such as radios and weapons among its units for years. Arkansas’ 39 th Infantry Brigade borrowed equipment from other units when it deployed to Baghdad in 2004 and is now sharing what equipment it has left with the 142 nd Fires Brigade, which just left for Iraq, and the 875 th Engineer Battalion, which is preparing to deploy.
Every Guard and Reserve unit is on a five-year deployment cycle. According to that Department of Defense cycle, the 39 th is eligible for its next deployment around 2009.
Pryor said Wednesday in a phone interview from Washington, D. C., “If you look at the calendar and their equipment needs, if they don’t get that equipment fairly quickly, I’m afraid they won’t be ready to deploy. And it’s not because they don’t want to. It’s not because they’re not trying. It’s because they don’t have the equipment to do it.” A request made Monday to the Arkansas National Guard for an update on its equipment levels was not answered by press time Wednesday.
Lack of equipment equals more costs down the road, forcing Reserve and Guard forces to remain on active duty longer because of the need for training.
Several studies have recently surfaced from within the Pentagon and from independent think tanks such as the Rand Corp. indicating that the Guard and Reserve are no less expensive than the active-duty forces.
“The Guard and Reserve have always been considered a bargain for the taxpayers,” said commission Chairman Arnold Punaro. “They give more bang for the buck.” Wednesday’s panel agreed that guardsmen and reservists on active duty receive the same pay and benefits as the active force. But the key is that they are not always on active duty.
Reservists and guardsmen go home to civilian jobs after a deployment. They are also limited as to how long they are eligible for military health benefits — four years after a one-year deployment — they don’t use military housing or other resources, and retirement benefits are drastically reduced compared with those on activeduty.
“How do you rest them in between deployments ?” said Vice Adm. John Cotton, Navy Reserve chief. “Reserve rest is much less expensive.” Stultz said the traditional guardsman or reservist serving 39 days a year — one weekend a month and two weeks a year — is a bargain. “There’s no way that soldier is costing as much as the active component,” he said. “And he’s ready to join the fight when needed.... And they have maturity. That’s a bargain that we don’t measure.” Stultz said the guardsmen and reservists would be even more of a bargain if they had the necessary equipment to properly train between deployments. Most Guard and Reserve units spend six to nine months on active-duty training on equipment before heading to the war zone. “We need to train, alert [mobilize ], deploy,” Stultz said. “But we are funded in the old method: alert, train, deploy.” If the proper equipment was available to train at the armories during regular drill weekends, then soldiers would not have to spend half of a year at mobilization stations preparing to go. The more time a soldier is on active duty, the more expensive he is. And the longer they’re away from home, the harder he is to retain in the force.
“We have units sitting at Fort Hood six to nine months preparing to deploy,” Stultz said. “That’s when the policy of 12 months’ boots on the ground [in Iraq ] becomes a two-year mobilization.” Stultz said that using the fiveyear model for Guard and Reserve deployments, traditional training needs to be expanded by one to two weeks for the two years before deployment. The extra weeks of annual training can be used to make sure soldiers are physically able to deploy. Many soldiers are disqualified at the time of mobilization because of dental or health issues.
“We need to treat a soldier the way we treat a piece of equipment,” Stultz said, referring to the policy of returning equipment brought back from the front to the condition it was in before deploying.
Some commanders have argued that guardsmen and reservists should receive Department of Defense medical care because it directly affects their ability to deploy.
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