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37–888 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–47]

HEARING

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED

PROGRAMS

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING

ON

BUDGET REQUEST ON READINESS OF

THE ARMY AND AIR NATIONAL GUARD

HEARING HELD

MARCH 27, 2007
(II)

READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas, Chairman

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam

MARK UDALL, Colorado

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma

NANCY BOYDA, Kansas

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona

KATHY CASTOR, Florida

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

TOM COLE, Oklahoma

ROB BISHOP, Utah

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington

PAUL ARCANGELI,Professional Staff Member

LYNN WILLIAMS, Professional Staff Member

CHRISTINE ROUSHDY, Staff Assistant
(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2007

Page

HEARING:

Tuesday, March 27, 2007, Fiscal Year 2008 National Defense Authorization

Act—Budget Request on Readiness of the Army and Air National Guard ..... 1

APPENDIX:

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 ........................................................................................ 27

TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 2007

FISCAL YEAR 2008 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUEST ON READINESS OF THE ARMY AND AIR NATIONAL

GUARD

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Jones, Hon. Walter B., a Representative from North Carolina, Readiness

Subcommittee ....................................................................................................... 2

Ortiz, Hon. Solomon P., a Representative from Texas, Chairman, Readiness

Subcommittee ....................................................................................................... 1

WITNESSES

Blum, Lt. Gen. H. Steven, Chief, National Guard Bureau, U.S. Army .............. 3

McKinley, Lt. Gen. Craig R., Director, Air National Gaurd, U.S. Air Force ...... 8

Vaughn, Lt. Gen. Clyde A., Director, Army National Guard, U.S. Army ........... 8

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Blum, Lt. Gen. H. Steven ................................................................................ 31

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Army National Guard, Total Strength—FY04 to Present ............................. 46

ARNG Equipped Requirements and Funding Over Time ............................. 47

Charts (10) submitted by Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum ...................................... 41

Equipment in States Possession ...................................................................... 48

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Mr. Ortiz ........................................................................................................... 51

(1)

FISCAL YEAR 2008 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUEST ON READINESS OF THE

ARMY AND AIR NATIONAL GUARD

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Tuesday, March 27, 2007.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:50 p.m. in room

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Solomon P. Ortiz

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. ORTIZ. Today the Readiness Subcommittee will receive testi- mony on the readiness posture of our Army and Air National

Guard.

National Guard readiness is an issue that I have followed closely, and it is of great concern to me. Not just because my district is in

a hurricane prone area, but also because I understand how important the guard is in providing for our national defense. Our concerns for the guard have grown over the past several years as I

have watched the guard change from a force supporting the strategic base to one that is operational in nature with less focus on strategic missions. This is an enormous shift in how the guard is used,

and while this change is not the focus of the hearing today, it does

directly influence guard readiness.

It is no secret that all of the services are having readiness shortfalls. Recent testimony before the subcommittee by the services

cast also great concern about the sustainability of the ongoing as

well as potential future missions. Just yesterday we learned that

as many as 1,200 Marine reservists are being involuntarily called

up for duty in Iraq. The service has been unable to find enough volunteers to fill. While this hearing is focused on the guard and not

the reserve, this call-up illustrates the increasing manpower shortages the services are facing as the war in Iraq continues.

The guard’s readiness posture is even more troubling than the

active component. The shortfalls in equipment and training, the

guard will have a direct effect on how they will respond to emergencies at home or abroad.

During General Blum’s testimony before the Commission on the

National Guard and Reserves, you said that it will take $40 billion

to bring the Army and Air National Guard up to 80 percent of their

equipment requirements. And I have seen in your statement today

that the guard is only at 40 percent of its required equipment.
2

This is an enormous shortfall, and it is evident, when I go out

to see national guard units in my own district, because I visit both

my reserve and national guard, and I find the shortage of equipment, every unit I visit has shortages of equipment, and I know if

Members were to travel and go to their own national guard units

and the reserve units, they will find the same things I did. And

this is totally unacceptable.

Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq war has shown us that we need

a national guard that is manned, equipped and ready. Today I hope

you gentlemen will help us better understand the readiness problems that the Army and the Air Force Guard face today.

The country wants to help, and we need to fully understand that

the guard needs to be ready for missions at home and abroad.

Gentlemen, I look forward to hearing your testimony, and the

chair recognizes my good friend from Virginia—he is Virginian and

North Carolinian, so he is both.

Mr. JONES. We really are good friends, by the way.

Mr. ORTIZ. The ranking member, Ms. Davis, has been ill for a little while, and we pray to God that she can come back and join us.

And now I turn to my good friend, Mr. Jones, for any statement

that he would like to make.

STATEMENT OF HON. WALTER B. JONES, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM NORTH CAROLINA, READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Chairman Ortiz, for holding this timely

and very important hearing on the readiness of our national guard.

I strongly believe the issues we are discussing here today are absolutely critical to the Nation’s ability to meet the National Security

Strategy, and I thank you for holding this hearing.

I would also like to thank our witnesses, General Blum, General

Vaughn, and General McKinley, for taking the time to talk to us

today about the needs of the national guard.

Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony, and thank you for all

you do for our Nation.

Whether we like it or not, the world is changing around us. Gone

are the days when we could assume that the guard and reserve

were a lower funding priority than the active component. The global events of the last four years, to include Hurricanes Rita and

Katrina, have shown us the flaws in our thinking. Decades have

reduced procurement and underfunding training, maintenance and

military construction accounts have placed our national guard in

jeopardy.

The increased operation tempo driven by continued combat deployments, counterterrorism activities, Homeland Security requirements, border protection and domestic disaster relief brings the

true state of our national guard to the forefront of our discussion

as we craft the fiscal year 2008 requests.

This committee received testimony last week on the findings and

recommendation of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves. In their written report, the Commission stated, and I quote,

Like all participants in the federal budget process, the reserve components must compete for scarce resources. Reserve funding requirements are planned, programmed, and budgeted for each serv-
3

ice budget process and are considered as part of total force requirements.

Finding sufficient funding for these requirements will remain an

ongoing challenge given the tight fiscal environment, competing

budget priorities, and the demands on Department of Defense

(DOD) in alloting its resources. We realize that policy-making is

often driven by resource constraints, and that trade-offs are necessary.

With that, Mr. Chairman, thank you again very much for this

hearing, and we do appreciate it.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much.

Today we have a panel of distinguished witnesses representing

the National Guard Bureau and the Army and Air National Guard

who will address the guard’s readiness posture. Let me say that we

thank you so much for the outstanding work that you do.

Even though we have a lot of problems, you still excel and do a

great job.

Our witnesses are Lieutenant General H. Steven Blum, the Chief

of the National Guard Bureau; Lieutenant General Clyde A.

Vaughn, the Director of the Army National Guard; and Lieutenant

General Craig R. McKinley, the Director of the Air National Guard.

Now, without objection, all of the testimony, the written testimony that I have, or any other written material that I have will

be included for the record.

General Blum, if you are ready, you can begin with your testimony, sir.

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. H. STEVEN BLUM, CHIEF, NATIONAL

GUARD BUREAU, U.S. ARMY

General BLUM. Thank you, Chairman Ortiz and members of the

committee. Thanks for the opportunity to come here and talk to

you today about the readiness posture of the Army and Air National Guard—actually, your Army and Air National Guard that

protects your families and your loved ones back at home and also

helps our Armed—our active duty Armed Forces do their job overseas in the war on terrorism.

I will try to be brief and to the point.

In the past, the practice of underresourcing the national guard

in assuming risk was a very conscious decision this Nation took

with regard to its Army National Guard force structure. It didn’t

fully man it. It didn’t fully equip it. It didn’t fully train it, and it

didn’t fully resource the Army National Guard because it never

was expected to be an operational force.

Thirty-four years ago we stopped what we called the draft, and

we went to an all-volunteer force. The national guard has been an

all-volunteer force since its inception in 1636, so this was nothing

new for us, but it was for the Department of Defense. And what

we are finding is that this old strategy of resourcing or

underresourcing the national guard and assuming risk, because

you have months and years to build up the force and equip the

force and fill up the force and then train it and employ it, is really

not a model that fits today.

Today you must—it is come-as-you-are and it is come-on-no-notice. And when it comes to the national guard, we have two mas-
4

ters, Mr. Chairman, as you have adequately pointed out. One of

our masters are the Governors of the 50 States and 2 territories,

the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and they have the national

guard that they can call out at any time to deal with the hazards

of mother nature, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and on

and on, winter storms, as you have seen. On any given day, at

least 17 Governors call on our national guard each and every day

since I have been in the job in the last 4 years. So it is not uncommon to have as many as 17,000 Army and Air National Guardsmen

deployed right in our own homeland saving lives and reducing suffering and trying to bring normal conditions back to your communities as we have seen all too well in Hurricane Katrina, Rita,

Wilma and on and on.

So today we find ourselves with a strategy that doesn’t fit the

operational use. The national guard is an operational force overseas. We provide significant combat power, combat service support

and combat support to the United States Army. We are essential

to the war in Iraq. We are essential to the effort in Afghanistan.

We are essential in the Horn of Africa. We are essential—we are

the forces on the ground in the Balkans. We are guaranteeing the

treaty in the Sinai, and frankly, we are deployed in about 40 nations around the world supporting the war on terror.

At the same time, as you are well aware, we have 6,000-plus national guardsmen along our southwest border in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas that are providing military support

to civil law enforcement agencies and the Border Patrol to make

our borders safer and more secure, and to deal with what is becoming an increasingly focused threat on our southwest border to a

safe and secure environment for those four border States.

Now, to do this kind of response, we need to be adequately

resourced. We have to be fully manned, fully trained and fully

equipped and fully resourced. I am proud to tell you that, for the

national guard forces, both Army and Air, that are deployed overseas, this is the case. They are the best equipped, best trained, best

led, best quality force that this Nation has ever put into harm’s

way, and that, I think, is something that the Congress can applaud

and be proud of.

What I am not so proud of and I do not want to applaud, but

I do want to highlight to this Committee, is that we are now in a

degraded state back here at home. And the ability for the national

guard to respond to natural disasters and to perhaps terrorists or

Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) events that may come to our

homeland is at risk because we are significantly underequipped.

The average Army National Guard unit in the States, without

going into classification categories, is—rough order of magnitude

has about 40 percent of the equipment it is supposed to have to do

its mission as an organization. So if it is an engineer unit, it may

only have 40 percent of its equipment. If it is a medical unit, it

may only have 40 percent of its equipment. If it is an aviation unit,

it may have only 40 percent of its helicopters. Now 40 percent is

an average. So there will be States and members here today that

have less than that. And there will be some, a few in this room,

that will have slightly more than that. But nobody has more than

65 percent of the equipment they need back here at home. And I
5

think that that condition is unacceptable, and it should be brought

to the attention of the Congress because I think the Congress is the

proper place to appropriate and authorize the cure to that.

If we were to get all of the moneys that the Department of Defense has offered and briefed this committee and to us, we would

have more money than we have ever had historically before in

equipping the guard. But all of that money, if all of it came to us

over the complete Program Objective Memorandum (POM) or over

the complete fiscal year defense plan (FYDP) over the five-year distribution of those funds, which is not a given, okay; but if that were

to occur, we would still find ourselves with what I described to you

as a $40 billion dollar deficit to equip the national guard, both

Army and Air, at the level that I feel is an acceptable level of operational readiness and would buy down the operational risk that exists here in our homeland.

Today, only 12 percent of the Army Guard units that are in the

United States, not forward deployed overseas, are equipped at a

level that I am describing. That means almost 9 out of 10 are not.

And in the Air National Guard, about 6 out of 10 are fully

equipped, and about 4 out of 10 are not.

So I am trying to give you the magnitude of the problem and

what it would cost, frankly, for this Nation to purchase the equipment that I am talking about.

We have the best led, best trained, best quality force, but to have

a capability, you have to have three things: You have to have people; they have to have training; and those trained people have to

have equipment. Those three things deliver the capability that I

think this Nation expects out of its national guard.

Today we have two of the three. And we have about half of the—

a little less than half of the third. And that is what I want to bring

to the attention of this committee today.

I talked about the fact that we are a dual mission force. We respond to the Governors on no notice. No notice means a 911 kind

of response. Governors measure the response of their national

guard to events that happen in their states and in those zip codes

that they govern in terms of minutes and hours. The Department

of Defense, a rapid reaction would be 96 hours, 72 hours. Ladies

and gentlemen, that is three or four days. That is an unacceptable

measurement of response time for the national guard to respond

here at home. To respond here at home, you have to have your people fully manned, fully trained and fully equipped and operationally ready on a moment’s notice.

If we don’t have the equipment we need, the reaction time is

slower, and time equals lives lost, and those lives unfortunately are

American lives in your home districts.

So this is a very, very important subject, I think, for this committee to consider and for us to discuss in detail here today.

The part of the national guard that acts as a federal reserve as

the Army and Air Force is receiving unprecedented commitment of

resources and attention by the Department of the Army, the Air

Force and the Department of Defense. I applaud that. I celebrate

that. It is the first time in the history of this Nation that that has

ever occurred. We now need to make sure that that same level of
6

attention is directed to the national guard that is in the employment of the Governors of this great Nation.

The Army and Air National Guard need equipment, but they also

need other things. They need a full-time manning that is realistic

and necessary to provide an instantaneous 21st Century minuteman and woman response when the Governors need their national

guard. The level of full-time manning in the Air National Guard is

a model that we should emulate and try to achieve and duplicate

in the Army National Guard. We are not there. We, today, finally

have the Army recognizing the requirements for the full-time manning of the Army National Guard, but, unfortunately, the resources

have not been applied or allocated to make those requirements a

reality. So we will not achieve that reality unless some adjustments

are made there.

It is unreasonable to expect to be able to generate a 150-man

medical unit or communications unit or engineering unit and have

only one or two full-time people in that armory responsible for the

Administration, the logistics, the training and the readiness of that

force. We need to get to a much more realistic model, and we need

to help the Congress to do that.

While we face challenges, there are many positive developments

as well, and I would be remiss if I didn’t bring that to the attention

of the committee.

First, our new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. Secretary

Gates on the 11th of January made a very significant decision to

limit the mobilization time for the guard and reserves to one year,

start to finish. This will guarantee, in my judgment, a sustainable,

all-volunteer force for the foreseeable future that could generate

perhaps 60,000 to 65,000 Army and Air National Guardsmen for an

indefinite period of time without straining the relations that the

soldier must maintain with their families and their employers. The

national guard is an older, more mature force than the active duty

force. And 70 percent of our force is married. So the family is an

absolute majority stockholder in what goes on and whether that

service member is going to maintain their membership in the national guard and be available on call.

We simply must address the predictability for the families and

the civilian employers so they can deal with the time and interruptions of service when the civilian employer has to let their employee go to do national guard service. I think this one year will

fulfill the bill. It gives the predictability and certainty the families

and employers have asked for, and Secretary Gates’s policy demonstrates his willingness to listen and to consider and be sensitive

to the citizen soldier and their needs. And it also, I think, shows

his courage and decisiveness to make hard calls that many in the

Pentagon were unwilling to make prior to his tenure.

Another great part of his policy is that we will call the national

guard units up as units and we will not force the service members

to have to volunteer. That is an unfair burden for them to bear

with their families and with their civilian employers. If they are a

member of the unit, they know when the unit will be called. It will

be on the cycle of service. They know exactly when their unit is

scheduled to be called or available to be called, and if they are in
7

that unit, they will go with their unit. And they can make their

choices whether to remain with the unit before the unit is called.

So I don’t think we will have to have many of the adverse effects

of stop-loss as we have seen in the past. His new mobilization policy will have a significant positive long-term effect, in my judgment.

Additionally, Secretary Gates has made a firm commitment and

has stated that he is personally committed to resourcing the national guard to a reasonable level that it has not been resourced

in the past.

Second, recruiting in the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard is at an all time high. We have the best quality force,

and we are generating higher enlistment numbers than we ever

had in the history of the Army and Air National Guard. Our retention rate or the propensity of our citizen soldiers to stay with us

and reenlist is at an all time high. It averages at about 115 percent

of our retention goals.

General Vaughn is most proud, as all of us are, as this time last

year we were getting wire-brushed pretty good by the services and

the Congress on what the strength looked like in the national

guard. I am happy to tell you that we will achieve our end strength

in probably the next 30 days which will take us to the 350,000

mark. You will find that the national guard has recruited higher

numbers in 2006 and higher quality than it ever has in the history

of recorded—keeping records of the all-volunteer force. So it is a

good news story, and frankly, we could not have done this and accomplished this without the authorizations and the appropriations,

that this Congress has provided the resources to the guard to make

us successful.

If the guard is adequately resourced and the guard has the proper authorities, we will not fail the Nation.

In closing, I would simply remind this committee that, in the

21st Century, with threats both overseas and here at home, a

strong national guard must have the response not only to respond

here at home but it has to be equipped and trained so that our adversaries overseas see us as a credible deterrent force, a force that

will complicate their thought process and make them consider very

long and hard before they make a short-range miscalculation.

What it would cost to send our forces overseas, if they do miscalculate, would be several times the magnitude of what it would

cost to appropriate and authorize what it would take to make our

force a credible deterrent for overseas adversaries and still a magnificent operational-ready force both abroad and here at home.

I would ask now the director of Army National Guard if he would

like to make some remarks in specifics to the Army Guard, and he

will be followed by General McKinley of the Air Guard.

[The prepared statement of General Blum can be found in the

Appendix on page 31.]

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much.

General Vaughn.
8

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. CLYDE A. VAUGHN, DIRECTOR, ARMY

NATIONAL GUARD, U.S. ARMY

General VAUGHN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and distinguished

members. It is indeed a privilege to be here to testify today.

I want to just quickly amplify and go through some of the points

that General Blum made, and then we will go quickly to my significant other down there on the other end.

Authorized end strength. General Blum talked to you about that

a second ago. The States have done a magnificent job in filling the

roles, and we have the youngest force that we have ever had.

When you look at the number of soldiers that we have less-than10-years now, we have more soldiers in the less-than-10-years

ranks than we have over-10-years. The Army National Guard is

changing and changing very quickly. A lot of enthusiasm out there,

but it will be tempered down quickly if we don’t get it equipped.

The Army has stepped up to this. As you know, there is $36 billion worth of equipping between the 2005 and 2008 through 2013

POM that they pledged to and testified to over here several times.

They are working hard to hold that. We need to insist upon

transparency. Even that, some of our concerns from our adjutants

general in the field is, there is no transparency between the checkbook, between the appropriations and them being able to see that

the equipment arrives in the States. And so we need to work very

hard on that particular piece.

Equipping is only one piece of the readiness puzzle, and the

other being training. And as we talked about a second ago, we have

recruited a lot of soldiers. We have also gone through nodularities,

as you know, that caused a lot of our soldiers to change their Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) on the run. So we have a significant delta that has to be dealt with.

Full-time support: As General Blum talked about, a lot of people

equate readiness directly with full-time support. And where was

that ramp before? It was based upon a strategic force. It is actually

an operational force now. No doubt about it. We need to accelerate

that ramp so we get the ramp brought out in fiscal year 2010 rather than following all the way through to fiscal year 2013.

And the last thing I would say is we are told many times not to

confuse enthusiasm with capability, and what I will tell you is we

have great enthusiasm in our soldiers to serve. Our states are

measuring up, and the capability piece of this is not exactly just

the men at this table. The capability that is brought about by the

dollars and resources for training and for equipping the force,

which are the big two, lays in some other different directions other

than us three.

And so we need that capability to have—we need to have the

resourcing to make this a tremendously capable force. Because it

certainly is a strong one, and it has the support of the people.

Thank you.

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. CRAIG R. MCKINLEY, DIRECTOR, AIR

NATIONAL GUARD, U.S. AIR FORCE

General MCKINLEY. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of

this committee, it is a pleasure to be the junior member of the Na-
9

tional Guard Bureau team to come talk to you today about the

state of readiness of the Air National Guard.

I am proud to be a member of the national guard. I have been

in the national guard since 1980. I also served on active duty prior

to that. I am also very proud to be a member of the United States

Air Force.

The United States Air Force is going through some very challenging times, but it has always prided itself on its integration of

its Air National Guard and its Air Force Reserve.

As the Air Force faces these challenges of recapitalization, reequipping its force, those same challenges trickle down to us, and

as General Blum’s vice chief for Air, I represent him with the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force to

make sure that we are modernized, trained and equipped, so that

your Air National Guard can be as effective and efficient in the

21st century as it was in the 20th century.

We have got readiness indicators that are trending down. And for

me to say that in the Air National Guard, it is hurtful because, for

many, many years, the Air National Guard has maintained extremely high readiness rates.

We are involved in the Federal mission alongside our active and

reserve counterparts at a high rate of tempo, and we are also assisting with our missions here at home. And as General Blum is

fond to say, we provided some of the greatest airlifts since the Berlin airlift in our resupply during Hurricane Katrina and Rita. We

are proud to do that. We are proud to do our State mission in addition.

So, Mr. Chairman, thanks for letting me be part of this committee today. We look forward to your questions. And I thank you for

what you have done for the readiness of the Air National Guard.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much.

Now I am going to ask you a question. You are the director of

the Air National Guard, and I understand that the Air Force accepted a ten percent risk across the total force in flying hours. How

does that impact on the Air National Guard?

General MCKINLEY. Any time you ask an airman to take a cut

in flying hours, it is hard to do. And I think, from my vantage

point, it is a risk that we have to take in this environment in which

we are living. You know, the Air National Guard prides itself on

its experience, both in maintenance and operations and our combat

support, but that experience degrades over time. It becomes hollow.

And we have never had to experience tiered readiness.

I am afraid that when our active component takes a cut in flying

time, which translates in us taking a cut in flying time, it will have

a risk to bear at the other end of it.

Now General Blum asked me when I became the director to

maintain our end strength. End strength was vitally important to

us as I became the director of the Air National Guard. So taking

that 10 percent risk, while it was painful, meant that we kept

106,700 members in the Air National Guard, also very important

to us.

So we had to do the tradeoff. But what it will equate to us, it

will mean that our pilots will get fewer than eight sorties a month
10

in our fliers, fewer sorties in our large aircraft, while at a very high

operational tempo rate in our global war on terror.

So I am concerned. It is a risk. I will keep General Blum fully

informed of that risk, but I thank you for that question because it

is very important to us.

Mr. ORTIZ. I want to look at ways to see how we can bring it up

to the standards, to what it was before because I understand—I am

not a pilot—but I know this is a very risky business, and you need

to have all of the adequate training you need. So we are going to

see what we can do to help you out.

General MCKINLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ORTIZ. I just have one more question, and then I am going

to pass it on to some of the other members.

Now General Vaughn, you are the director of the Army National

Guard. Regarding personnel end strength, are you comfortable with

the Army National Guard end strength of 350,000 for the fiscal

year 2008? Is this enough?

General VAUGHN. Mr. Chairman, I am not comfortable with that,

and the reason I am not comfortable with the 350, first of all, we

would have to choke it down some and we would have to quit recruiting like we are now. We have the opportunity to grow this

force. We cut our force structure significantly in the last 24

months.

You remember the debates about hollow force. We cut from

375,000 and we got our force structure down to around 350 to 352.

Now to increase that readiness that we all are concerned about, we

need to take our appropriated strength up above that. And I know

that in growing the force, the Army has a 358 projection in for us

through fiscal year 2013. I will tell you that that is reachable a lot

earlier than that. And as soon as we can get an over-strength posture, we will increase our readiness significantly in our units.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much.

Now I want to yield to my good friend from Georgia, Mr. Jones.

Mr. JONES. I will claim the State.

General McKinley, let me ask you, General McKinley, the term

‘‘reset,’’ would you explain to this committee as it relates to the

number of changes that will be forthcoming to the Air National

Guard? And can you briefly explain what you mean by the Air

Guard reset and how this will impact on the readiness of the Air

Guard?

General MCKINLEY. Thank you, sir, for that question. It is a

term that we have never used before in the Air National Guard.

For 60 years, the Air National Guard has been on a steady stream

of capitalization. We have maintained older airplanes, but we have

always had relevant missions in support of our United States Air

Force and in our state mission at home.

When I became the director last summer, we encountered some

severe headwind, as I would say in my vernacular, in that we were

feeling the effects of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC)

legislation which affected almost all of our units; practically all of

our states’ territories in the district were affected by BRAC.

We also were faced with the Air Force restructuring or transforming itself, and their proposal, that we have used as a model,

was the Total Force Initiatives Implementation program. Total
11

Force Initiatives means looking for new missions for missions that

have sunset and gone away.

We also need to look at our Air National Guard in the context

of making all of our wings the same. Some states had gotten out

of balance. Some of our wings had grown at the expense of other

states. And so we felt that if we were going to go through this radical transformation, let us do it all at once. The upheaval is causing

a great deal of tension in our organization. So we decided not to

extend it out but to encapsulate it.

And finally, we wanted to what I call fix the books, make sure

everything within our system was adequately funded and that we

didn’t take extreme risks.

So you put all of those factors together, that is what we call our

reset.

General Blum and I are working very closely with the states. The

adjutants general, for the first time in history, we have agreement

that this reset is important, that we can move through it carefully

in an environment in which each airman is protected so that we

don’t break our force, and we feel that with the support, the membership in Congress, that if we are adequately resourced, we will

go through this reset, through the effects of BRAC, through the effects of Total Force Initiatives and integration and have a stronger

Air National Guard when this is completed.

Mr. JONES. General Vaughn, just one question. It is my understanding that as you go on a 12-month mobilization policy, you will

need to adjust training. Also, funding to the Army National Guard

will need to be provided early in the cycle. Is this accurate?

General VAUGHN. Congressman, that is right on the money. We

need to move a lot of our training from what we call the righthand

side of the mobilization to the lefthand side. And we simply need

to move the resourcing dollars to accompany that.

The states need the equipment 12 months prior. They need to

know what the mission is going to be, and they need to get the

resourcing dollars, the training dollars, to make sure that we prepared the soldiers and units for the best possible mission. We need

to prepare them in such a way that they are going to survive, going

to do the right things for the Nation, and the way to do that is to

give them as much training time as we can as far forward as we

can, which is 12 months early.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much.

The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. First of all, I want to thank you, all of you, for your

service to the country. In particular, I want to thank you for the

magnificent job the national guard did in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. It is very fair to say that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) fell on their face, and the only thing that

prevented FEMA from being a further embarrassment to our Nation was the magnificent work of our national guard riding to the

rescue.

To that point, General Blum, if a Katrina-type event—well, I will

go back. I remember, in the Spring of 2004, the 890th, which is an

engineering unit which had been a part of the initial invasion of

Iraq, came home to Mississippi, and they had been ordered to leave

their particular equipment behind. And in the Spring of 2004, I re-
12

member asking Secretary Rumsfeld—at that point, they had been

replaced, I think, 60 percent—if we had a catastrophe in Mississippi, what would you do? It actually happened 19 months later.

And to the best of my knowledge, 19 months later, we were still

at 60 percent. Now they did a magnificent job with what they had,

but they could have done better with more.

Do you have any higher degree of confidence in FEMA today

than you did 19 months ago, or are you still going to be called

upon, whether it is a natural disaster in Mississippi or a man-made

disaster because of an act of terror in New York, San Francisco

wherever, are you any better prepared to respond to that than you

were 19 months ago, or are you less prepared?

The second question would be with regard to vehicles like Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAPs) vehicles.

A couple weeks ago, Representative Hunter made the observation

that we have a lot of very good unarmored Humvees in Iraq in

staging areas. And he supposed that that equipment would be coming back and be given out to the guard units. I am not so sure that

that is a good supposition. Because it is my hunch that the Administration, whether it is this Administration or a future Administration, is going to be highly tempted to give those vehicles either to

the new government in Iraq, the new government of Afghanistan

or some other ally in the region.

So of the 37 billion that you have—that you have outlined as

your immediate needs, does that address my theory that a heck of

a lot of equipment won’t be coming back. Does that take that into

account, and to what extent, if any, are you replacing things like

Humvees with MRAPs?

General BLUM. Thank you, Congressman. That is a good list of

questions. Let me try to deal with them in reverse order, if I can.

The accounting—could you put up Chart 10, please.

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on

page 41.]

General BLUM. What I am about to show you presumes that all

of the money that the United States Army, the Department of the

Army, and the Department of Defense have allocated to the national guard over the next five years gets to us. I am making that

assumption. I am going to assume that the DOD and the Army

honor their commitments that they have made to move the money

that they said they would to the national guard. That will be an

unprecedented amount of money. However, it will leave us at about

a 65 percent fill level nationally.

Mr. TAYLOR. After the 33 billion?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. After. After that money is received. So it still

leaves about a $13.1 billion bill to make whole the equipment we

would need to get to an acceptable level of readiness that is described at the top of the chart. And it would also require $6.5 billion in operating and maintenance money to make that a reality as

well, and approximately $4.5 billion for the national guard payment allowance money that would be required to make all that fit.

So all together, that is a $24 billion bill additional to the moneys

that we are assuming and counting on getting to the national

guard over the next five years. So, to directly answer your question, yes, we took into account those factors that you brought up.
13

So this is a realistic estimate, in my judgment, of what will be required to in fact buy down the risk and to in fact ensure that we

were a credible deterrent force in the eyes of any adversaries overseas and an immediate operationally ready force back here at home

should we have to respond to a future Katrina.

The second question you asked me was about MRAPs, the improved vehicles that are basically mine resistant and anti-ambush

protected vehicles. Those vehicles that exist today are at arguably

400 percent more effective in protecting the soldiers inside of them

than an up-armored Humvee and largely that is due to the shape

of the bottom of the vehicle, as you are well aware of. I won’t go

into that because of the classified nature of why it is that way. But

I am reasonably confident you will understand what I am talking

about.

We have expressed, General Vaughn and I have expressed our

absolute commitment to accelerating that program and making

sure that no soldier that goes in harm’s way doesn’t have the very

best armor protection this Nation or any other Nation’s industry

can provide. Right now, General Speakes, the Army, G8, has an

open competition, with the captains of industry to compete for

these vehicles and is purchasing these vehicles at a pretty aggressive rate now. When I say a pretty aggressive rate it is almost

equal to what the Marine Corps is doing. They have, a rough order

of magnitude, I think 1,100 in theater now. He is pressing very

hard to go to 2,500. If I am not mistaken—and I am pulling these

numbers out of my memory—it is close to 17,000 of these MRAP

vehicles that we see as a requirement and the Army is working

very furiously to get to that. It would be very welcome, I think,

that this committee watch that very close and if they can offer any

assistance in that I would ask you to do so because it will mean

numbers of lives saved rather than lives lost on the battlefield.

You asked me if FEMA, do I feel confident FEMA is better positioned now than it was in Katrina? Yes, I do. And so I think

FEMA’s capabilities have improved and I think organization has

improved. And I think that there is a new sense of urgency and

commitment within that organization to do better the next time.

That said, it will still require the response of the national

guard—and that is not a bad thing. That is a good thing. It is going

to take a joint, interagency, intergovernmental response to any disaster of that magnitude. And we should be much better together

than we were last time.

I am not happy to tell you, however, that our capabilities are not

in the gross terms of percentage of equipment fill better than they

were when Katrina happened. When Katrina happened, you were

about 50 percent on your fill in Mississippi for your national guard,

Army National Guard equipment. Today you are 49 percent. That

is not going in the right direction.

I will tell you that within that 49 percent we have made significant improvement in our greatest deficiency, and that was communications equipment. So within the 49 percent, there is some bands

of excellence and a better capability to respond. But, however, our

engineer equipment, our high water trucks, our aviation assets are

still in scarce supply.
14

How do we overcome and mitigate that? We do that through

emergency management assistance compacts between the States

that would not be affected by the hurricanes or less likely to be affected by the hurricanes, and we move that equipment and preposition that equipment to ensure that it is close enough to respond to

the predictable hurricane patterns of this Nation.

But I would feel much better if every State National Guard had

what they needed to do their job so that the magnificent citizen soldiers in those units had all the engineer equipment they need in

that great engineer unit and the aviation unit had all of the helicopters they were supposed to have because that would reduce the

time it takes to respond. And a timely response actually translates

into number of lives we can save. Time equals lives saved and lost.

Quick response and effective response saves lives. A delayed response costs lives. And I think we are all in the business of trying

to save as many American lives as we can and lose as few as we

possibly have to.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, General, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ORTIZ. Gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. LoBiondo, do you

have a question, sir?

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Thank you

for being here today, for your service to our country. To General

McKinley I am sorry that weather forced us not to be able to meet

at the 177th, but thank you for considering it and I look forward

to working with you.

General McKinley, the Air National Guard is some of the oldest

aircraft in the fleet. Can you talk about what concerns you may

have with the recapitalization from the Air National Guard perspective?

General MCKINLEY. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir, I am sorry I missed

that meeting up at Atlantic City, too. You have got a great fighter

unit there and they have been fighting the global war on terror

with their air defense mission now nonstop, and I really appreciate

what they do for us.

The United States Air Force is faced with a very serious recapitalization problem. When I joined the Air Force in 1974, the average age of our fleet was eight years old. Today the average age of

the United States Air Force aircraft, to include the national guard

and Air Force Reserve, is 24 years old. If we recapitalize the Air

Force, as the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force would

like, it will only slow down that age creep.

So for units like yours in Atlantic City, what we have to do is

find a way to put them in a road map so that they can see that

there is a future mission for them. We have to work with the

Chiefs of National Guard Bureau, and the Secretary of the Air

Force and the Chief to make sure those airmen who have stayed

up in that city and dedicated their lives to that organization don’t

feel that there is not a plan for their futures.

The United States Air Force has a plan to recapitalize. The Air

National Guard has been considered in that plan, and we will continue to work closely to make sure that units like yours and others

around the Nation are fully resourced and are fully able to participate in the recapitalization that is on the books but unfunded.
15

Mr. LOBIONDO. I appreciate that because there is a lot apprehension and a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of dedicated people are sort

of counting on the right thing to happen.

It is pretty well known that the older the aircraft the more it

costs for the upkeep and to maintain them and keep them in the

air. And yet, the Active component is shifting its older aircraft into

the guard. The national guard receives approximately 7 percent—

if my calculations are right—of the Air Force budget but at times

over 50 percent of the strikes in the global war on terror are being

performed by national guard and reserve units.

So how does the Air National Guard plan to address the soaring

costs of maintenance of these older aircraft in the guard units like

the 177th and others around the country?

General MCKINLEY. It is a serious problem. I would like to say

there is a short-term fix but there is not. There is a stable, longterm fix to our aging aircraft fleet.

The aircraft that you talk about, the F–16s, are deemed legacy

and yet they are still fighting in the war on terror today doing a

great job, as I talked about in our closed session. They are fighting

alongside the Active component in every mission we fly.

I think when you have a legacy fleet like we do in the Air National Guard, if we continue to face serious funding shortfalls, it

will only degrade our readiness over time.

Those aircraft can only be deferred for maintenance for so long.

Those aircraft will ultimately break and be out of service. Some of

the ages of our fleet, KC–135, 47 years of age, not many of us drive

an automobile that is that old. Our C–130s are 26 years old. Our

F–15s are 24 years old. Our F–16s in the high teens.

So this is a large problem. It is a serious problem that affects our

total Air Force. We are concerned about it, sir. We will work with

you and other Members in Congress to make sure we don’t let that

valuable force go to waste.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Chairman, do I have time for another question?

Mr. ORTIZ. Yes, go right ahead.

Mr. LOBIONDO. General, beyond the maintenance cost issue, one

of the other serious concerns that I have is about the capabilities

of the older aircraft that are being shifted into the guard, the lesser

capabilities.

Is that taken into account? It has to be taken into account when

you are talking about mission tasking, doesn’t it?

General MCKINLEY. Right now we have got a fleet of aircraft—

I am speaking predominantly of kinetic fighters that can integrate

well with our aerospace expeditionary force model and, thanks to

Members like yourself, through the national guard and reserve

equipment account we have been able to modernize those aircraft

with precision targeting pods and things that we were unable to

obtain through the normal funding streams. So I would like to

thank you again for giving us that capability.

For the foreseeable future we should be able to be fully interoperable with our Active component counterparts. But as we get into

fifth generation fighters, new C–17s, new KCXs, the real task for

General Blum and myself is to make sure that the Air Force has
16

enough resources so that it equips the guard and reserve units that

they have depended on for the last 60 years.

That is going to be the real challenge for all of us, is to find

enough money to re-equip those units with systems that can sustain themselves into this new century.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Has there been any discussion or planning of selecting Air Guard units with homeland security missions such as

the combat air patrol over high value targets of terrorists attacks

with newer aircraft, you know, the F–35s? Any discussions or any

comments you can make on that?

General MCKINLEY. Sir, as you know, the preponderance of air

sovereignty over the United States is flown by Air National Guard

aircraft, both fighters and tankers. Atlantic City, prime example of

that. Those aircraft fly over critical infrastructure, and they are

doing a great job, and we thank them for what they do.

In the future, as the Air Force modernizes its fighter force with

the F–22 Raptor, now stationed at Langley Air Force Base, we envision a time when the fifth generation fighters will be used because they are very effective aircraft, with its speed and its

lethality of getting to a target fast enough to have an effect. We

will look at the F–35 as we can, as it is brought into line, to see

if it can also meet that mission requirement.

There is a tremendous balance with these new sophisticated

fighters being used so much overseas that we don’t retain them

here at home. We need to make sure that we have enough of them

in quantity to do that.

Mr. LOBIONDO. General McKinley, thank you. Generals, thank

you. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Mr. ORTIZ. Ms. Bordallo.

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would

like to say thank you to the generals here, General Blum and General Vaughn and General McKinley.

General Blum, you spoke very glowingly about the guard and

particular about our guardsmen, our Guam guardsmen that are

stationed over in the Horn of Africa.

And since this now is a public hearing, I would like to ask you

again the same question that I did earlier, and that is to say that

I am particularly a strong supporter of our country’s national

guard. And it seems that the men and women of our national

guard do more with less each year.

So currently the guard units are deployed to practically every

hotspot around the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan. And

companies from Guam’s Guard have for four years now—this is the

fourth deployment—have been deployed to the Horn of Africa. In

fact we have an entire company there.

So my question to you, and I respectfully request that you discuss with the committee whether you believe that this increased reliance on the guardsmen and women, is a short-term reality or

whether the guard can be expect to be tasked in this manner for

the foreseeable future, and whether the Department’s budget planning will reflect this outlook.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. That is an excellent question, Congresswoman. First, let me tell you that the performance of the Guam

National Guard is second to none. They are well respected and wel-
17

come in the theater. They have established an amazing reputation

for competence, tolerance, and professionalism. And you can be

very proud.

The citizen soldiers of Guam serve at a disproportional rate to

the rest of our Nation. Compared to the rest of the country, they

probably have the highest percentage of native sons and daughters

in uniform of any of our States and Territories, and they do an

amazing job.

I don’t think what you see happening with them now is a shortterm anomaly. I think what we are experiencing now is the new

reality. The national guard has fully made the transition from a

strategic reserve to an operational force. The citizen soldiers and

airmen of Guam have done that as well. The only thing that has

not done that so far are resourcing policies and authorities, regulations and statutes.

They are still largely best supportive of a strategic reserve, and

they do not fit. And they do not adequately address, without some

significant friction and work-arounds, the resourcing and sustaining an operational national guard or reserve component.

These need to be addressed by the Congress and these need to

be addressed also by the Department of Defense and Department

of the Army and the Air Force and they are moving in that direction, although not as fast as many would like. But it is moving in

the right direction and there is a new sense of commitment to getting that right.

I think this is exactly what our Founding Fathers intended. I

think our Founding Fathers had it right. And I think they were

amazing in their vision because I firmly believe—as both a military

officer and as a taxpayer and American citizen—we should never

send our American sons and daughters into harm’s way ever without calling up the national guard because there is a very significant

difference calling up citizen soldiers and airmen as opposed to a

professional army of all volunteers.

For the last 34 years, we have been an all-volunteer force. When

you call up the guard for overseas missions or even missions here

at home, you call up America. We saw that in Katrina where every

single state and territory, to include Guam, sent people to Mississippi and Louisiana to save lives, reduce suffering and restore

normalcy to the lives of the people in the gulf coast.

As you go around the world, you cannot find any theater where

combat is being conducted, where stability operations are being

conducted, or any other military operations are being conducted

that do not include citizen soldiers and airmen from your Army and

Air National Guard from all the various states. That is exactly the

way it should be.

And when they go overseas, they should be superbly equipped.

And they are. And they should be superbly trained. And they are.

And they should be superbly and competently led. And they are.

But they also deserve that same level of support when they are deployed back here at home under the command and controls of the

Governors of our great Nation to do homeland defense missions or

support the homeland security missions or respond to the adverse

ravages of Mother Nature, such as you experience on the islands

in typhoons and tsunamis and hurricanes and tropical storms and
18

all of other severe weather patterns and anomalies of nature that

we suffer.

On the average about 17 states a day for the last 4 years have

had their national guard called out, and it is not uncommon to on

any given day have 7,500 citizen soldiers called out by the Governors of our great States of this Nation to save lives, reduce suffering and return normalcy to the lives of the community and the

citizens of that state.

And that doesn’t even take into account the 6,000 that are on the

Southwest border right now supporting the Border Patrol. When

you call out the national guard at home, you have a different—you

can’t do it on the calendar. You have to do it on your watch. It is

counted in minutes and hours. The response must be that quick.

It has to be like your local fire department. And they have to get

there almost as fast as the local fire department. That is the expectation of the American people and the mayors and Governors of

this Nation. That means they must have the people, the training

and equipment they need to be able to do that. If your house

catches on fire and you call your local fire department and they

show up with 34 percent of their equipment, you are not going to

be happy with the result. And you expect better than that, and you

would find that unacceptable.

I think that is the same level of scrutiny we ought to put on how

we equip our national guard for the homeland mission, and that is

why I brought it to the attention of this committee.

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very, very much, General. And it may

interest you to know that our chairman of this subcommittee will

be visiting our guard facilities on Guam in a few days.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much. Ms. Boyda and then followed by

my good friend, Mr. Ellsworth.

Mrs. BOYDA. Thank you so much for your testimony in both of

these hearings, and you have been very generous with your time

and I certainly, as many people, including our Governor back in

Kansas, are concerned with the readiness levels of equipment with

our national guard.

My question had to do with the change of policy that Secretary

Gates was talking about with the one year, and I might ask you

to explain that again so we all are on the same page.

My question is, if that is one year, one year out of five—wasn’t

that it? One year? If the guard has become really part of our overall full force and we have a Katrina, does that mean that those

guards, in your estimation, would you expect in the case of a national emergency, whether it be on our soil or others, for someone

to be able to say, well, that was our best theoretical but, unfortunately, we have changed from being an emergency guard that you

all have played, to now being part of those full-time Armed Forces?

What is your level of confidence at some point they are going to

come to you in a national emergency and say we need to go ahead

and deploy people who have already deployed for over a year?

General BLUM. I don’t think it will take—Congresswoman, I

don’t think it will take a national emergency to do that. I think we

are there now. The stated goal, the objective that Secretary Gates

stated, was we will absolutely mobilize the guard for one year and

one year only. That is a very welcome policy because heretofore it
19

was one year boots on the ground and probably four or five months

of preparation, training, and perhaps a month or two after they got

back and one year wasn’t a year. It ended up being somewhere like

18 to 22 months. I think he realized the burden that was placing

on the citizen soldier and the family and the employers, the three

legs of the three-legged stool that I described earlier. I think it was

a very courageous and right decision that he made.

He said the stated goal would be that we would call up the guard

perhaps one year, followed by five years. The model would be—the

goal would be——

Mrs. BOYDA. So they would be deployed once every six years.

General BLUM. One year followed by five years back at home, essentially one in six. That is exactly what it would be. He said we

are not—he was very clear. He said it at the White House. He said

it at a press conference. He said it to committees of Congress. And

he is consistent in his message. He said that is not achievable right

now. We will have to deploy the guard more frequently than one

in six years. We will have to probably use the guard more, to be

totally realistic, at the rate we are using it today and, as the best

we know in our crystal ball, the best—which is not perfect, and

never has been—but we think we are probably going to have to

turn the force at about one year and followed by four years back

at home, which would be one in five and some specialized units

where we don’t have a deep enough inventory to rotate may have

to go even slightly sooner than that.

The Secretary understands that that places an undue burden on

the family and the employer, and he is working a compensation

package that I don’t have the details of yet because they haven’t

been finalized, but they will be forthcoming very soon, that will

show how we recognize the sacrifice of the family, the member and

the employer and we take some measures to mitigate that discomfort that turning or more frequent rotation would cause.

He is also even with that piece of the disadvantage, and the reason for that is the enemy has a vote in this. And they are not following our plan. If they were, we could change the rotation rate

down. The current realities of the global world security situation

are going to require that the guard be an operational force overseas

for the foreseeable future at about the rate I described, which is a

little less than what his desired end state would be.

Mrs. BOYDA. May I just ask is that based on our current conflict

in Iraq? Is that based on if something else were to happen globally?

When you say you foresee it being at that level, given where the

world is today, is that the world is at war in Iraq?

General BLUM. Well, Iraq is not the totality of where our forces

are.

Mrs. BOYDA. I understand.

General BLUM. We have forces in the Balkans in the national

guard, we have forces in the Horn of Africa.

Mrs. BOYDA. That is basically the level of conflict today.

General BLUM. Yes, a steady state. And the reason he has done

that is to not repeat the errors where we made rosy predictions and

optimistic predictions of less force required and then we found ourselves running to catch up with reality. So we are worst-casing it,

planning for the worst. Rather than planning for the best and hop-
20

ing the worst doesn’t happen, we are planning for the worst and

hoping for the best. And if we can get to the one in six sooner then

obviously everybody will be happier about that.

But the national guard will be part of the operational rotation.

Just how much it will be involved and how frequently it will go is

undetermined, frankly, and we don’t determine that. What we have

to determine is to make sure that two things happen and if you

can—and it might be useful to put up a slide that shows the commitment that we have made to the Governors. I think that is slide

three. This would be an interesting slide to show. Because when I

first came in to the job, we were not paying attention to what you

are alluding to, and that is the balance of the forces that we have

to remain available to the Governors on call all of the time to be

able to respond in the States, to do homeland defense, homeland

security operations and still be a reliable, accessible ready force for

our overseas missions as a Federal Reserve of the Army and the

Air Force.

So the Governors worked out this model that you are looking at.

And what it illustrates—you don’t have to read the small print.

You just have to watch the large colors. They are saying that the

piece of the pie that is shown in the chart that is in green is the

force that would remain available to them at any given time.

And they said, Governors of this Nation, all of them, the National Governors’ Association had a meeting in 2003 and they approved that if they thought it was reasonable that we would have

about 25 percent—and that is the people that are shown in red—

that would be deployed overseas at any given time from the national guard, Army and Air, that that would leave them 75 percent

of their force back at home. That would be the quadrant shone in

gold and in green, and the ones that would be red would be overseas and unavailable. And now that period of time would be one

year. And before that period of time was 18 to 22 months.

So the new policy reduces that friction. And then the people that

would be in the gold quadrant would be those that are in intensive

training, being equipped—that is what General Vaughn was talking about, moving the manning and the money and the equipment

into those people so that they are absolutely ready when they are

needed and we can in fact have them ready when they need to go

into that one year of mobilized status. And the goal would be that

that wheel would rotate about one in six years. Now if it needs to

turn quicker, it can. But the proportions stay the same.

Now if you looked at these charts, which I know you can’t read

from there, but it takes every one of your states and every one of

your districts, your home districts and it shows that we have honored that, our obligation to the Governors, and that there is only

one state in the whole country right now that threatens breaking

the 75 percent availability model and that only breaks it by 1 percent. Every other state in our country has about 80 percent as an

average of its national guard back at home and less than 20 percent currently deployed overseas. So the people are back there. The

troops are back there to train——

Mrs. BOYDA. Your point is training and equipment——

General BLUM. Now what is missing is the equipment because

when the troops came home, the equipment didn’t come home. So
21

remember we go back and I don’t want to—we go back on the other

three-legged model and that is people, training and equipment.

And if you don’t have the equipment you don’t have capability.

Again let’s go to the fire department. You have a world class fire

department, has all of its 80 percent of its people in the station

ready to go and they are superbly trained. But they only have 34

percent of their equipment. How effectively can they respond? They

can respond. But it takes longer. They have to borrow equipment

from other places which means they are slower in their response

which means they are not as effective in saving lives and property

as they could be. You can take that little model and apply it to the

national guard’s mission here at home and it translates very, very

well.

Mrs. BOYDA. Thank you very much.

Mr. ORTIZ. Mr. Ellsworth.

Mr. ELLSWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for

letting me join your committee today. Thank you, Generals, for

your testimony and your service. I have to tell you that I keep

waiting for the good news. I have been here a grand total of about

90 days now, and I asked to be on Armed Services so I could help

you to do your jobs. I have been to the Pentagon and met with different hearings. And when I came in I guess I was a bit naive to

our readiness and our state of readiness in all the branches, and

it is very concerning to me.

And now I find out again—I won’t do this very often—but when

I read the initial articles about being redeployed in readiness, my

first call was to Adjutant General Lombard of Indiana. Let me tell

you, you have a good one. Indiana should be proud and I am sure

you are, too.

But I can feel your pain a little bit. As a former sheriff, I can

remember sitting on that side in front of a county council and trying to convince the county council about equipment needs and that

we wouldn’t use these things every day and they would sit there.

But on the day that you get the call that you need them, you need

them. And you don’t have time to procure and you don’t have time

to order and you don’t have time to go down and shop for that. And

I know you don’t either.

General, one of the things you said in both hearings, you were

talking about during the budget process that—and you kind of emphasized the word ‘‘if.’’ If we got all the money budgeted it would

still be about 65 percent of what I take is the 65 percent of what

we need and leave 13.1.

Is there a question whether we get that, or has it happened in

the past where we, the Congress, or they the Congress at that

time—I shouldn’t use the word ‘‘earmark.’’ that is not a very good

term, but put money for you and it didn’t make it to you or there

is doubt in your mind that it is going to make it to you? And then

I guess the follow-up question to that is, what do we in the Congress need to do to make sure you get your share of the pie?

General BLUM. Well, let me give you some good news. The good

news is the force is in magnificent shape in personnel. That is the

hardest part to fix. We have the best people, the best quality people

and the ranks are full. That is great news. A year and a half ago

nobody thought that was possible except for the two guys at this
22

table. We have achieved that and it is the finest quality force, the

most professional force, the youngest force and the most combat experienced force. Sixty-five percent of our force are combat veterans.

That is the good news.

The other good news is it looks like the young men and women

of America are continuing to want to join our ranks and do what

we are asked to do. I think that is good news.

The other good news is that our problems are pretty easy to fix.

This is a very rich nation, and these problems are solvable. These

aren’t complex problems. These are really moneys that need to be

authorized and appropriated. The fix is that simple.

So most of the real bad news problems are much more complex

than that. This is a relatively simple thing to fix. And again I go

back to your history as a sheriff. If you had all your deputies and

they are all trained and they are high quality guys and girls, if all

you need is some equipment and the county council votes you

money and authorizes the money, it is pretty easy fix, isn’t it, compared to finding quality officers, experienced officers, guys and girls

with extraordinary integrity and courage to go do that kind of

work.

We have that. We have got the hard part fixed. That is the good

news. The bad news is that we are under resourced. And the bad

news is what you alluded to, it would be highly unusual—I mean

the Members here have a far greater historical record of watching

how appropriations and authorizations change and morph over the

FYDP and over the POM. It is very extraordinary that money that

shows up in the POM in one year survives and gets to its intended

purpose throughout that five or six-year cycle.

Let me say that history is replete with broken promises and broken commitments—not of the current leadership, but of past leadership. So if history is an example, we should be skeptical. We

should be dubious. We should be very watchful, both as senior military leaders and as a Congress, to see that what was intended actually transpires and becomes reality.

There are also historical examples of times where the Congress

was very clear in what their authority and their appropriation and

what their authorization was intended to do and they put it into

an account called a national guard and reserve equipment account,

and that has rarely ever deviated from its intended purpose to its

desired end state.

Same could be said for national guard pay and allowance accounts and national guard on operation and maintenance (O&M)

accounts. So I am not talking about earmarking, but I am talking

about if the Congress is concerned that the money that is authorized and appropriated would be rerouted, reprogrammed, used for

another purpose, if the Congress is concerned about that, there are

some remedies of that that Congress could implement. We would

be glad to take the appropriations and the authorizations in any

manner they come, because we are going to use it to purchase and

buy the capability that we are discussing today that we don’t have.

So however it comes, we are going to be grateful. If it comes

down from DOD appropriations or the Department of Army appropriations, in your case, or Air Force appropriations, we are willing

to move out with that. If they come in on the national guard equip-
23

ment account, it is very clear what the intent is and we will not

deviate from the intent.

Mr. ELLSWORTH. I will speak for the whole committee, but I have

heard enough in the backroom that we want the money to get

where we think it is going and we will do everything we can to get

that. I think probably the same thing you talked about, where we

were not as ready as we were on September 11 of 2001 was probably equipment. I am guessing, since you stated you have the men,

we have got the training, the good people, but having the equipment is——

General BLUM. I am glad you gave me the opportunity to clear

that up. We are eminently more ready today than we were on September 11th. We are focused. We have planned. We have trained.

We have exercised. We have stood up new capabilities in the last

five years. We had zero joint force headquarters on September

11th. We have one in every State and Territory today. We had zero

chemical biological nuclear high yield explosive enhanced response

force packages on September 11th. We have 17 of those today. We

had only 10 civil support teams on September 11th. We have almost 48 of them trained, ready and certified today.

We have had little connectivity of Information Technology (IT)

and communications to provide secure and nonsecure e-mail and

secure and nonsecure video teleconferencing (VTC) and communications capability. We now have exceedingly good situational awareness, common relative operating picture that we share in a secure

and nonsecure method through something we call the joint Continental United States (CONUS) support environment, communication support environment. These are huge steps in the right direction.

We have trained and exercised with the Department of Homeland Security and Northern Command, which did not exist on September 11th. So there is great—we have an Assistant Secretary of

Defense for Homeland Defense that we didn’t have on September

11th. So we have policy overwatch at the Pentagon for this. We

now have a combatant commander that watches out for this. We

now have a national guard that is postured and mentally prepared

to do this. Now all I am asking is, let’s close the last mile correctly

and let’s equip the guard adequately so that when we are called

we can be as superbly able as this country expects us to be in response to a weapon of mass destruction or a catastrophic event,

whether it is caused by a freak of nature or it is caused by an accident, an industrial accident, whatever it is. Whatever causes

Humpty-Dumpty’s demise we have to be able to respond to that

and return to a normal condition and save as many lives. The long

pole in the tent right now, the last thing we need to make this complete, is to equip the force properly to do that job.

Mr. ELLSWORTH. I couldn’t agree more. I think the American people will drive by a guard center and see the generators out there,

think, boy, they haven’t moved for a year but when I needed those

in the tornado in 2005, November of 2005, when the guard came

out and did an excellent job, we couldn’t have done without them

and 25 of our residents were killed that night. Not nearly on the

size of Katrina, but certainly in our area it was huge.
24

Finally—so thank you for that also. Finally, do the Governors

have a say—this shouldn’t take a long answer—have a say if our

guard units are deployed overseas, do the Governors have a say

and, if not, should they have some say or at least consultation from

our Administration before they are deployed overseas?

General BLUM. Absolutely they do and absolutely they should,

and they have been magnificent. I have not seen in four years in

my tenure here any Governor at any time play politics with regard

to their guard. They stop being politicians and they become the

commanders in chief of their national guard. That is what they are

by law and they take that responsibility with immense seriousness.

And not one single Governor has ever denied equipment, soldiers,

or airmen for the overseas mission in the war on terror in my tenure here, and I know my two colleagues can speak to that in detail.

We have at times had discussions with Governors to make sure

that we didn’t disproportionately pull capabilities out of one

State—let me not use Indiana, let me use Idaho. Idaho at one point

had 82 percent of its national guard deployed overseas. That is a

little bit much to ask. And we found better ways to do that. And

hence, that is why we built that model with the National Governors’ Association to make sure that the Governors always would

have what they needed to protect their local citizens at home, yet

at the same time would be a reliable, accessible ready force to help

the Air Force and their air expeditionary rotations and help the

Army in the Army force generation model so we can give the combatant commanders the capabilities that they needed without leaving Governor Daniels uncovered in Indiana.

Mr. ELLSWORTH. Thank you, and thank everybody the three of

you represent. Thank you for your service. Mr. Chairman, I yield.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much. You know, I know that this committee is very concerned. But we have 435 Members. Do you think,

should all 435 Members be concerned? Do you think we should be

very concerned? I know members of this committee are.

General BLUM. Mr. Chairman, absolutely. Whose district should

not be adequately protected? Of course. The answer is every zip

code, every congressional district in our great Nation ought to be

adequately protected. And if the guard is adequately equipped, we

can do that because we are prepositioned, forward deployed in

every Congressional district of this Nation. There is no place that

anyone elects a Congressman that doesn’t have a national guard

presence, which means a capability to respond in that local area,

and call on all of the help that they can get from the adjacent areas

and the adjacent states if necessary, as was demonstrated in

Katrina.

So the better we are equipped the better we can respond, the

faster we can respond, the more effective it can be, and again not

only is that a capability, I think every American expects, it sends

the message that is no small message to our adversaries overseas

that while we may be stretched and we may be engaged in Afghanistan, in Iraq, we are not out of options. We are not out of capabilities. And could we respond if some other event were to happen? Of

course we could. Could we respond more effectively? More timely?

And better if we were fully equipped? Absolutely. And could we

perhaps prevent the requirement to respond overseas to a new
25

place if an adversary viewed us as a more credible reserve than we

are right now? I think the answer to that is absolutely.

Mr. ORTIZ. One of the things that I noticed when I went to visit

my national guard and reserve units, my district borders Mexico

and they had just come back from Iraq. They had—this is the second time that they have been activated and they came back to

Iraq—I mean from Iraq. We saw that they don’t have—when they

are activated they don’t have anybody left behind, because the families stay behind—to give them information that they need because

the families stay behind. They don’t know where to go for family

services, for medical services.

And then on top of that, I always want to talk to the families.

I found out that 15 percent of the members of the national guard

who were there, they are married, they are married to their wives

who are in Mexico. They are in the United States. They are fighting a war, but then the families who are on the Mexican side, the

immediate families, the wife and the children, do not receive any

type of services whatsoever. No health services. We had a lady

whose little girl, she couldn’t be there because she was sick. She

had pneumonia and her husband was fighting the war in Iraq.

I think we need to look at that, and I don’t think that a lot of

people understand that and know that when you get close to the

border there are a lot of young men and women who serve in the

military and their families are separated from them. And I hope

that when they are activated somebody can stay behind. We had

one lady that was doing voluntary work and the reason she was

doing volunteer work was because her brother had been in Iraq,

and he was there. There was nobody to guide the families who

were behind to tell them what kind of services were available and

where they could go to seek assistance.

Maybe we need to look at that and see what we can do because

now more than ever we are seeing more activation of reserve units

and national guard units than before. And I don’t know generally

if you all were aware of this, about the 15 percent all along the border of the families, immediate families, wife and children, who are

on the Mexican side cannot come across to receive any type of medical services.

General BLUM. Mr. Chairman, every day I learn something new.

I learned something new. I would like to take that for the record.

I would like to take that back. We clearly understand we are a very

diverse nation, and it is very different what is going on in Connecticut, is very different from what is going on in Guam, and what

is going on in the whole rest of the country is very different than

what is going on in Texas. So we have tried not to have a one-sizefits-all solution and we kind of powered down all of our programs

to the State level.

But I must be honest and admit to you that I was not aware

what you have just described to me. And I will look into that, and

I will call up General Chuck Rodriguez, the Adjutant General of

Texas, and make sure he knows about this and he may say, sure,

we know about that and this is what we are doing about it and I

will share that with you. And if he says, no, I did not know that,

I will make sure he does know that and we develop some way to
26

adequately support those soldiers that have a problem that up

until now I was unaware of.

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 51.]

Mr. ORTIZ. And thank you so much. I did not know either until

I went to pay a visit in the national guard unit in my community.

Well, thank you so much for the work that you do. We are going

through a few crises here and there, but we will do okay and this

is a great nation, a great country. We ask God to give us wisdom

so that we can do the right thing, so that we can make the right

decisions. And being no further questions, this hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X

MARCH 27, 2007

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

MARCH 27, 2007

(31)
32
33
34
35
36
37

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

MARCH 27, 2007

(41)
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE

RECORD

MARCH 27, 2007

(51)

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ORTIZ

Mr. ORTIZ. There was nobody to guide the families who were behind to tell them

what kind of services were available and where they could go to seek assistance.

Maybe we need to look at that and see what we can do because now more than

ever we are seeing more activation of reserve units and national guard units than

before. And I don’t know generally if you all were aware of this, about the 15 percent all along the border of the families, immediate families, wife and children, who

are on the Mexican side cannot come across to receive any type of medical services.

General BLUM. When national guard soldiers are alerted for deployment, they are

briefed at that time on the wide array of family support resources which will become

available to them.

For every Texas Army National Guard unit that is deployed there is a rear detachment led by the Rear Detachment Officer in Charge or Non-commissioned Officer in Charge. These individuals have contact with the families and the unit’s Family Readiness Group leaders.

Each deployed unit has established a Family Readiness Group (FRG) that is led

by volunteers (usually spouses of the deployed soldiers). These FRGs make routine

contact with all the family members of the deployed unit and host many activities

in order to promote cooperation and cohesion amongst the families.

The Texas National Guard State Family Program has established 18 Family Assistance Centers (FAC) throughout the State of Texas to directly assist families and

provide referrals to any agency or organizations that can provide needed assistance

to the families. They also routinely contact the families of deployed Soldiers and Airmen.

At this time, no deployed Texas National Guard soldier has identified benefitseligible dependents living in Mexico. The Texas National Guard has researched the

matter, however, and determined that there are soldiers who, if deployed, may have

eligible family members in Mexico. The Texas National Guard is reviewing its system for collecting this information from soldiers during the pre-deployment phase

to insure that contact information is provided on record for such dependents.

Families of national guard soldiers and airmen who are deployed have full benefits under TRICARE provided the family members have been properly enrolled for

coverage. The National Guard Bureau is not the controlling authority for the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) but it is our understanding

that even if a spouse resides in Mexico, he or she may be enrolled by their national

guard member upon presentation of validated documents such as a marriage license. Once enrolled, family members are authorized to obtain healthcare either in

the United States or inside Mexico via TRICARE Overseas.

Æ