Posted on 06/09/2003 5:14:49 PM PDT by Brian S
The Pentagon's heavy use of part-time military units in the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq may be starting to exact a price: The nation's largest auxiliary forces — the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve — are beginning to have trouble meeting their recruiting targets.
As of April 30, the Guard was nearly 6,000 recruits short of where it needed to be on that date to meet its Sept. 30 target of enlisting 62,000 new soldiers, Pentagon statistics show. If the Guard can't reverse the shortfall, it would mark the first time since 1996 that it has failed to fill its ranks.
The Army Reserve is also lagging behind its recruiting target and was about 800 soldiers short of where it needed to be in early April to meet its Sept. 30 goal of 42,000.
Defense officials and civilian analysts say the numbers demonstrate that the unusually intense use of part-time soldiers over the past year and a half is beginning to seriously affect the Guard and Reserve. Units have been called up for numerous missions that include guarding bases around the world, fixing war-torn towns in Afghanistan and flying refueling jets over Iraq. Nearly two months after the fall of Baghdad, there are still 215,000 Guard and Reserve troops on active duty around the world, many in Iraq.
"I think it is reasonable to conclude that people are looking at the last 19 to 20 months of mobilization ... and they are voting with their feet," says Tom White, a former secretary of the Army. "I think we're seeing the leading edge of a problem."
Recruiters aren't helped by the apparent transformation of part-time soldiering into full-time jobs. A decade ago, men and women who joined the Guard and Reserve knew in most cases they would train one weekend a month and perform two weeks of summer drills. The vast majority were unlikely to be called for extended active duty.
The Guard and Reserve "have been the equivalent of the volunteer fire department in local communities," says Jim Martin, a retired Army colonel who teaches courses in military culture at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. "That may have to change if ... they are constantly called up."
A recruiting drought could have serious implications for homeland security and the war on terrorism, since Guard and Reserve troops are shouldering much of the burden of guarding U.S. airports and performing other domestic security missions.
The demands on National Guard and Reserve troops, most of whom have full-time civilian jobs, have been unrelenting. Some units, including military police and nation-building soldiers known as civil affairs specialists, have been called up almost constantly since the Sept. 11 attacks. Last year, the Pentagon extended about 15,000 Reservists for a second consecutive year of active duty, the first time that had happened since the Vietnam War.
For now, the recruiting trouble seems to be confined to the Army's part-time units. The active-duty forces are on target to meet recruiting goals, as are the Air Force Reserve, the Air National Guard, the Naval Reserve and the Marine Corps Reserve — though those part-time units are smaller than the Army's and usually have an easier time meeting their goals.
by USA TODAY
It goes back alot farther than that. Clinton sent Guard and Reserve forces to the former Yugoslavia and other such garden spots to deliever the Pizza and/or keep the locals from slaughtering each other. Guard and reserve forces were orignally concieved as to be used in those sitations where the regular forces was inadequat to the job AND to protect the homeland if the regulars were off bashing the "wogs". Such is degraded state of our military, in numerical terms if nothing else, that we can't take on a 3rd rate country like Iraq, or Bosnia, without committing our citizen soldiers to the fray. Some of that is deliberate in fact. Some capabilites were taken out of the active forces and put into the guard and reserve, mainly combat service and support missions, so that the active forces can not deploy for any signifigent length of time, or on missions requiring a large logistics tail, without calling up guard and reserve forces.
It's about time the military services had to answer for the lies they've told those in the Guard over the years.
When they recruit, they emphasize that a person, probably just out of high school, can complete his military obligation in the Guard and go on to college at the same time. And, as long as we are not at war, why not?
So the person joins, having been assured that he belongs to the state and his mission is the defense of his state while the Army may be occupied overseas. Then comes most any action at all and his unit is mobilized. "Aha, sucker! We gotcha!"
You see, this way, the federal government can keep a pool of military-trained personnel on line for whenever and wherever they need them for less than one-fouth the cost of personnel in the regular Army.
Now that we don't have a draft, I see no reason for anyone to want to join the National guard at all.
How are the regulars doing with recruitment? Any shortages?
So the person joins, having been assured that he belongs to the state and his mission is the defense of his state while the Army may be occupied overseas. Then comes most any action at all and his unit is mobilized. "Aha, sucker! We gotcha!"
What you say is partially true (the "one Army" concept has been hard on the Guard and Reserve), on the other hand, national emergencies like September 11 and the War on Terrorism are exactly what the Guard and Reserve were created for (as opposed to Vietnam, where few AGR units were deployed). We're at a crossroads where we either need to expand AGR while offering better benefits and a reasonable rotation policy, or the expansion will have to come in the form a AGR draft (not politically acceptable). In either case, the days of "one weekend a month, and two weeks in summer" are over for now. Get used to it, like us active duty guys did.
Yes the recruiters emphasize benefits, but every single recruit has been briefed on possible sacrifices. Unit Commanders & supervisors should be in the process from the start & let the individual know what his deployment potential is based on his career field & the unit's mission. Before I even consider anyone, I make sure they're prepared to go to training, overseas contingencies, or a flat out one year rotation in support of a war.
If their is any doubt, they don't get in.
Things have obviously changed since I was in the Guard, then. Before I joined, I was told repeatedly that the Army had to essentially be on the ropes before the Guard would be mobilized and shipped out. Now, I see that they are among the first to be called.
In that case, joining the Guard is a huge ripoff, because it would better to join the regular service than join the Guard where you're never a civilian and never a soldier for six to eight years and there is NO GI bill or veteran's benefits.
Well, in a sense you are right. But many states have their own, purely state-run defense forces, and the age limits are far higher.
I've been in the Indiana state defense force (the Indiana Guard Reserve, or IGR) for about 9 years. A number of us have been putting in weeks (or even months) of active duty helping to mobilize Guard and Reserve troops at Camp Atterbury for Operation Enduring Freedom. You might see if your state has such a force.
The Coast Guard Auxiliary can also offer some real-world opportunities to help out, and to "backfill" someone else on active duty who can then be deployed.
Typically this work is non-glamorous, but it can be a way to serve in uniform and help out.
Unfortunately, my unit doesn't deploy for continuous duty. It is rather a 2 days here 3 days there type thing. My employer (a defense contractor) gives me 10 days off for NG duty. After that, it comes out of my pocket.
I cannot afford to lose the civilian pay, and I have no 'personal days' left 'cuz of a medical problem.
My unit called me yesterday and said 'we need you for a couple days this week'. I said "You've already spent the 10 days my employer is legally forced to give me. I have no vacation and cannot miss the pay."
They tried to give me a hard time and I said "Write me up or whatever...." I am between a rock and a hard place and may end up being forced to quit the Guard myself.
If we did bring back the draft, I would submit that it should be in the form of universal service in the Guard or Reserve forces. Let the active duty establishment recruit from those who go through basic or ROTC/OCS. We would of course need lots of officers, and ROTC is a good source of those. It works well for Switzerland, and IIRC Sweden, not to mention Israel. It's also more or less what our own founders intended.
The difference being that you active duty guys (many Guardsmen and Reservists are former AD too you know, I"ve been all three, active duty, reserve, guard and then reserve again) don't have other jobs/careers. Weekends and two or three weeks a year about all a civilian career can stand. If nothing else look at it from the employers perspective. They can't hire someone else to do the work, other than a temp which in many jobs just isn't practical, and they are required by law to keep the job of the reservist/guardsman and provide her/him with the same promotions he/she would have gotten if they had not gone off for a year or two. Easier not to hire them, or make them the first casualties of the next layoff. That would of course be illegal, but it's also virtually impossible to prove. It might not even be all that deliberate or blatent, just a "What have you done for me lately" attitude by lower level managers will get you lower "marks" and those in turn will tend to put you at the top of the layoff list.
there is a lot of downside to the Guard and Reserves...
it isn't just " a weekend" and just "two weeks" in the summer....
a weekend when you work full time means 12 days in a row on.....not good for family raising...
the "two weeks" in the summer is actually 3 weekends with the two weeks in between....take that amount of time away from the children in the middle of July or August, and it is significant for being a "part time job"..
most of all....you are never considered to be as "good" as the regular military...in every way...
most glaringly.....you can't get an ounce of retirement pay....which is proportional of course...but you can't even get that til your 60.....
that is no incentive to give up all the quality family time thru out the year, to be expected to be as qualified in every way as the full time military, and on top of that...to be pulled in every direction when ever the govt. want to....
at least in the active, you can ask for certain assignments, get BAQ, extensive and unlimited base priviledges, and health care as well....and the guarentee that after 20, you get a nice pension....
You bet there is. My experience in the Guard was that we got, at best, at least one generation obsolete equipment, most of our officer leaders were complete losers and we got absolutely no relevant training.
That, combined with the inability to have a summer job between school years due to summer camp, makes it so that I could not recommend the Guard to anyone.
Where's the advantage when you have no certain mission, only to be constantly on call for anything worldwide for very little pay?
The gubmint has completely obliterated the mission of the National Guard, and now they are whimpering that nobody's joining up? Small wonder.
Not necessarily. Active duty would consist of basic training plus advanced training or tech school as required. Pay would be E-1/E-2 level (or O-1 as the case might be). Unit training, and maybe in some cases advanced training too, would take place at the home station in the individual's area of residence. Conducted by other reservists/guardmen.
It would probably mean even more unit training would be required before any deployement following a call up, than is now the case. Somehow Switzerland and the others manage it, on even smaller fractions of their total economies. Besides the defense budget is still at post WW-II low levels, and only up slightly from the Clinton drought. The biggest expense would be all the M-16s and M-2 sidearms required to arm all those soldiers.
I meant the biggest capital expense. Those guns, and the ammunition necessary to qualify with them are cheap in comparison to salaries and such.
Then I said to myself, "Self. You and Meanz should be gettin' the big bucks from USA Today instead of these yayhooz. We scooped 'em by at least a few days."
Think we should send in our resumes?
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