The chairman of the congressionally-created Commission on the National Guard and Reserve said the panel is calling for “fundamental changes” in how these forces are trained, equipped, used domestically, paid, promoted and supported if they are to become an operational reserve rather than a strategic reserve.
Arnold Punaro, a retired Marine Corps Reserve brigadier general, said Jan. 31 in a meeting with reporters in Washington, “Without these 600,000 guardsmen and reservists” mobilized for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq “the nation would have had to go back to the draft.”
In its 400-page report, the commission said it sees “no reasonable alternative to the nation’s continuing increased reliance on the reserve components” for missions at home and abroad.
Punaro said at the start of the commission’s work about 2 ½ years ago that “We were skeptics” about the changing nature of the reserve components’ role in military operations abroad and in providing military support to civilian authorities.
He said that it was a natural fit to have the reserve components take the lead in responding to weapons of mass destruction being used in the homeland, massive earthquakes and catastrophes such as the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast.
“They have a huge skill set that the active duty do not” in these kinds of crises, he said.
He added they also have the equipment and training for that kind of mission. “We need to enhance DoD’s role” in providing this support to local and state governments.
Wade Rowley, a commission member who served 23 years in the California Army National Guard and Army Reserve, said, “Today, the U.S. is part of the battlefield,” but “nowhere is it spelled out the National Guard’s role in homeland security and civil support” missions.
Punaro said the commission found the Army National Guard less ready now than it was seven months ago when the panel said 88 percent of units were not ready for deployment.
Rowley said the commission is recommending that U.S. Northern Command have a significant increase in guard and reserve membership and be included by statute in the command’s leadership.
It also was calling upon the Department of Homeland Security to tell the Department of Defense what it would be expected to provide in terms of personnel and equipment in domestic crises.
“We believe the National Guard and reserve should be the tip of the spear in homeland security and civil support” and that federal forces in those situations should be placed under the governor’s control.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said earlier he would not recommend that federal forces be placed under local control.
“We believe problems should be solved at the lowest level,” Rowley said.
Looking at personnel questions, Patricia Lewis, a commission member and former senior staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the panel “wants to take advantage of the highly educated work force of the future” and shed recruiting and retention practices that are 50 years old or more.
She said the commission was recommending a portable benefits package so a person can move in and out of military service, “promotions based on skills rather than longevity” that would include changes in Goldwater-Nichols for joint duty assignments and education needed for promotion to three-star or higher rank, “recognizing civilian skills on entering military service” and “more early vesting for retirement.”
At the same time, the commission recommends integrating pay and personnel systems from the 20 or more statuses a guardsman or reservist could be in to two “on active duty or in reserve”
Lewis said that better support for families and employers was “critically important.” The panel recommends an expanded role for the Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve program with a “one-stop shopping site for employers and small businesses” to receive the information they need about the rights and responsibilities of the guardsmen and reservists working for them.
“Continuity of care is a significant concern for families of mobilized guardsmen and reservists, she said, and the panel recommended incentives for employers to keep these families in their health care programs and the possibility of opening the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program to them.”
Punaro told the Associated Press that the commission would ask the Congressional Budget Office to do an analysis of costs of its recommendations.
The Commission on the National Guard and Reserve's report is found on: http://www.cngr.gov/Final%20Report/CNGR%20Final%20Report.pdf