Silver Bullet

National Guard, May 2008 by Umbarger, R Martin

Late last summer at our conference in Puerto Rico, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W Casey asked me what I thought it would take to complete the Army National Guard's conversion to an operational force.

He posed the question as we walked to an officer-professional-development luncheon with our company-grade officers. The new Army chief of staff said he was there to listen and learn, so I gave it to him straight.

If I had one Silver Bullet to accelerate our transformation, I told him, I would use it to eliminate our severe shortage of fulltime manning.

I explained the correlation between fulltime manning and Army Guard readiness. I said more full-time manning before mobilization would reduce the training time our units need after mobilization. And 1 told him no other investment brings a greater return.

Unfortunately, my little talk didn't change much. The Pentagon's fiscal 2009 budget request only nudges full-time manning to about 68 percent of what the Army said we needed in 1999, the last time it crunched the numbers.

The slight boost is part of an ongoing Army plan to increase Guard full-time manning to 73 percent of the 1999 requirement over the next five years.

In other words, we're expected to sustain an operational force through a period of consistent conflict with less full-time manning than the Army said we needed as a strategic reserve.

Army officials want to hold off on any bold increases until they determine a new full-time manning requirement for the Army Guard.

Such a study is warranted. After all, the Army hasn't analyzed the requirement in nearly 10 years. But any objective study can only conclude a higher figure today than before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

That begs an obvious question: Why wait? Why wait for exact numbers when there is such a critical shortage? Why wait to begin strong funding increases when our units need help now?

One of the difficulties in telling this story in Washington is the focus on the aggregate, our current requirement of 84,850 full-time personnel. It glosses over where the problem really lies, which is also where the rubber meets the road for soldiers-in our company-level units.

Most of these units are required to have five or six full-time positions. Instead, many have no more than two. That's one or two people handling the daily administration, logistics and maintenance of an operational outfit of 130 soldiers.

Our people are great, but they're human. They get sick, take leave and have to go to schools. That means there are days when many of our companies are maintained by one soldier. Heck, it takes one person just to answer the phones.

We're getting by, but only at great risk to our readiness. And the Pentagon and Congress need to know how we're getting by. That is by overworking our full-time staffs and, in crunch time, by putting people on orders and imposing on part-timers to come in on their own time.

Relying on our traditional officers and NCOs is especially troubling. Their time comes at the expense of families and civilian careers. They're dedicated professionals, so they will do it. But we can't continue to take them for granted. There is a breaking point.

In January, the final Commission on the National Guard and Reserves report echoed my earlier assessment to General Casey. It found that inadequate Army Guard fulltime support was a drain on readiness and called for full funding by 2010.

Still, the Army chooses to wait. We at NGAUS, however, are not waiting. As we're often forced to do, we've gone to Congress. We've told lawmakers about the risks we take every day with a short full-time force.

Now it's your turn: Write your representatives in Washington. Tell them how shortages of full-time manning affect your unit. As always, you can do this at the "Write to Congress" feature on our Web site at www.ngaus.org.

In this fight, you could be our Silver Bullet.

Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger

Chairman of the Board

NGAUS

marty.umbarger@ngaus.org