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NATIONAL GUARD ON-THE-RECORD ZOOM/TELEPHONIC 

MEDIA ROUNDTABLE

July 16, 2021

TOPIC SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS

State National Guards’ Mitigation Efforts 

Due to Funding Deficit

§ Air Force Major General Richard R. Neely, Adjutant 

General, Illinois National Guard

§ Army Brigadier General R. Dale Lyles, Adjutant 

General, Indiana National Guard

§ Army Brigadier General John J. Driscoll, Land 

Component Commander, Massachusetts Army 

National Guard

§ Army Brigadier General Craig W. Strong, Vice 

Director of Programs and Resources/Comptroller 

on the Chief of the National Guard Bureau's Joint

Staff.

Background:

The National Guard used fiscal year 2021 funding to pay for the operational Capitol response from 

January to May. By cash flowing the money, it ensured the Soldiers and Airmen who volunteered for the 

mission were paid. The nearly $521 million cost of that mission is still a deficit against our budget. 

Without the reimbursement funding, the National Guard may need to curtail or reduce its drill 

weekends, annual training, and operations and maintenance for the months of August and September.

Dialogue:

[Name] [QUESTION/RESPONSE]

Nahaku McFadden [00:00:01] Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. My 

name is Nahaku MacFadden and I'm from the 

National Guard Bureau Public Affairs, and I'm 

going to be moderating this media roundtable on the 

state National Guard's mitigation efforts due to a 

funding deficit. So we have several National Guard 
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senior leaders that will discuss the impacts on 

training and readiness and if reimbursement funds 

are not received. This event is scheduled for 

approximately forty five minutes and is on the 

record today. We have Air Force Major General 

Richard R. Neely, Adjutant General, Illinois 

National Guard. We also have Army Brigadier 

General, R. Dale Lyles Adjutant General, Indiana 

National Guard, Army Brigadier General John 

Driscoll, Land Component Commander, 

Massachusetts Army National Guard. And we have 

Army Brigadier General Craig Strong, Vice 

Director of Programs and Resources Comptroller 

National Guard Bureau. Before we begin, I ask that 

you all remain on mute until I call on you for your 

question. When asking a question, please identify 

yourself and your outlet and limit to your best one 

question. We have a lot of media that RSVP today 

and we want to try to ensure that we get through as 

many of each of your questions as possible. If we 

have time, we will open it up to those who may 

have and want to ask another question. Each general 

will provide some brief on the record comments 

regarding their state National Guard's response and 

in the Zoom chat, their bios are attached. So 

following their comments, we'll take your questions 

with that. I'm going to turn it over to Air Force 

Major General Richard Neely, Adjutant General of 

Illinois National Guard. Sir. 

Maj Gen Rich Neely [00:01:50] Well, good afternoon, Major General Rich Neely in 

general for Illinois and the commander of the 

Illinois National Guard. And thank you all for 

joining us to talk about the unfortunate federal 

funding issues affecting the National Guard today. I 

will be speaking specifically about the impacts for 

the state of Illinois and the Illinois National Guard. 
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However, those impacts will be the same for all 

other states and territories and the District of 

Columbia. The National Guard has not been 

reimbursed for the capital response mission that 

started on six January and continued to almost the 

end of May. The reimbursement of the five hundred 

and twenty one million or five hundred and twenty 

point nine million has been mired in Congress. To 

ensure the National Guard could continue to 

operate, the National Guard bureau took risk several 

large accounts expecting the reimbursement. They 

use that funding to push to the states so we could 

continue to operate. However, time is running out in 

these accounts must be funded through the end of 

the fiscal year to ensure the National Guard does 

not have an Antideficiency Act violation. To that 

end, we have been notified, the adjutant generals of 

the National Guard, that the National Guard will 

begin pulling back unobligated funds to close this 

funding gap, to reimburse those accounts that must 

be paid. The Illinois National Guard faces a 

potential funding shortfall of thirty one million 

dollars across multiple accounts. Please remember 

the Illinois National Guard, much like all the other 

states, answered the call to duty three separate times 

for the capital response mission. It committed more 

than eight hundred servicemembers. This is in 

addition to the more than three thousand Illinois 

National Guard members who have been called to 

duty over the last 18 months for the covid-19 

response, along with more than a thousand excuse 

me, over a thousand soldiers and airmen who have 

served overseas in harm's way in the hundreds that 

have been placed on state active duty for 

emergencies within Illinois. Now, after everything 

our troops have done, everything their families have 

sacrificed. The Illinois National Guard may be 
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required to cancel August and September, a 

weekend for thirteen thousand soldiers and airmen, 

cancel upcoming annual training events, furlough 

over one thousand federal civilian employees, 

ground aircraft, which will cause pilots to lose 

critical flight readiness ratings, cancel essential 

military schools, pull transportation. I could go on 

and on, but you understand the significant impacts 

that this funding shortfall will have. The loss of 

these funds will have major impact on our 

readiness, both for our federal missions and for state 

emergencies here in the state of Illinois. It would 

also have a personal impact on both our our 

traditional National Guard soldiers and airmen in 

our full time workforce. Most of these traditional 

soldiers and airmen would lose two months of drill 

pay, which many of these troops and their families 

depend on. These troops and their families would 

incur a debt to the government because of this 

military insurance, life insurance and Tricare health 

insurance come out of the service members military 

pay. Younger National Guard members have 

deductions such as there for the military blended 

retirement systems as well. All of these payments 

would fail for two months behind in creating 

significant debt that would be recouped later. Other 

National Guard members could lose a good year 

towards their retirement. There are multiple and 

cascading effects of canceling drills and annual 

training. These effects on our full time force would 

be terrible as well. It would be punishing the force 

that has worked extremely hard in the last year, the 

last two years, in fact, to ensure the National Guard 

is always ready and always there when our nation in 

our community needs us. Given what the National 

Guard has done in the last 18 months, we would be 

sending a terrible message to thousands of 
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dedicated men and women of the Illinois National 

Guard who have taken the oath to support and 

defend the Constitution. They acted honorably. 

They upheld their oaths countless times. And in 

some of the most difficult situations, it's time for the 

federal government to keep its promise. I'm hopeful 

the situation can be resolved before the funds are 

pulled back at the start of August. Our guardsmen 

who have worked so hard over the last 18 months 

deserve better. Again, thank you for your time and 

thank you for joining us today. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:06:56] Thank you, sir. General Lyles, do you have your 

opening statement? 

Brig Gen Dale Lyles [00:07:03] Thank you, I do. I'm General Dale Lyles, I'm the 

Adjutant General for the Indiana National Guard 

and I will just echo what General Neely said. 

Certainly everything that is impacting the state of 

Illinois is also impacting the state of Indiana. So 

what I'll do is just highlight three things within the 

state of Indiana that I think are very detrimental to 

our readiness center, our ability to support both our 

federal and our state missions. So a lack of 

reimbursement for the things that we cash flow for 

Operation Capital Response will negatively impact 

what we have programed in planned for August and 

September. And primarily what that means is it will 

further degrade the Indiana National Guard's 

readiness on the heels of an already degraded 

readiness state because of covid and our inability to

train collectively. So we have the fifty fourth 

Security Forces Assistance Brigade that is teed up 

to start training at the Joint Readiness Training 

Center next month for an overseas deployment. 

That particular training exercise is at risk right now 

because it may have to be canceled in order to 
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properly pay other accounts. And so our federal 

mission to deploy OCONUS will be at risk as well 

as we have companies that are getting ready to start 

being trained for a border mission. Those missions 

are also at risk because of the inability to train in 

August and September. These lost training 

opportunities could potentially place our soldiers 

and our airmen in harm's way and not being trained 

at a level proficiency that I would deem necessary 

to deploy them. Additionally, the inability to train 

our Guardsmen on Drill weekend in August and 

September degrades our governors ability to deploy 

us domestically in the face of a manmade or natural 

disaster within our state because we do not have the 

opportunity to train our National Guard reactionary 

forces in August and September as well. And I'll tell 

you Rich hit on this a little bit from the TAG from 

Illinois. The impact on our soldiers and our families 

is going to be very drastic because our soldiers, our 

airmen rely on predictability. So do our civilian 

employers. So our soldiers and airmen must know 

when they're going to train in August and 

September in order to allow their employers and 

their families to know that so that they can set aside 

the proper time to allow them to train without 

disrupting their place of employment. In addition, 

our soldiers rely on their paychecks in August and 

September in order to pay their mortgage, to pay 

their car payment and to pay their family expenses. 

And without that paycheck, it will put them in 

harm's way. And so those are just three things that I 

would highlight that will impact the National 

Guard, both the Army and the Air National Guard, 

in addition to what Rich outlined. The tag from 

Illinois. Thank you. 
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Nahaku McFadden [00:10:13] Thank you, sir. General Driscoll, do you have 

anything to add? 

Brig Gen John Driscoll [00:10:17] Yes, good afternoon. On behalf of Major General 

Gary Keefe, the Adjutant General of the state of 

Massachusetts, I am Brigadier General John 

Driscoll. I am the Land Component Commander, 

the Army Guard Commander for the Massachusetts 

Army National Guard. And just to echo a little bit 

on the readiness piece, to sum it up, as Napoleon 

said, you can ask me for anything except time. But 

that time, if we can't train in August and September, 

we can never get back. And to bring it down to 

those families, because as I look at it, we're really 

straining the trust of the families and the employers 

because our soldiers are the key, just as General 

Lyles said, it's predictability. They plan their years 

just like we plan our training around these dates. 

And unfortunately, now that at the last minute we 

have to cancel that. And again, it really strains the 

trust we have with our families and their soldiers 

and their employers. And again, it's very tough to 

get back. I'm sure we will. But one more call. We're 

always ready, always there. And I can speak to a 

little bit from the ground perspective because I was 

at Task Force Capitol Grounds Commander. I had 

the privilege to lead the soldiers of Illinois and 

Indiana down on the Capitol response that were just 

outstanding. They're motivated. And after this 

turbulent year in twenty twenty, couldn't get any 

worse. We double down in twenty twenty one with 

Operation Capital Response. And just as we come 

out of this, covert operations are starting to 

somewhat subside. The soldiers are want to get 

back together. They can be together, they can train 

together and really set the conditions for success in 

twenty, twenty two. And without that ability to do 
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that and close out the year strong, we just put us 

behind and we lose that time. So thank you very 

much and looking forward to your questions. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:12:03] Thank you, sir. We're going to start now going 

through our list. Remember one question and then if 

we have time, we'll go around and open up for 

anyone who might have a second question. So I'm 

going to start off is the CNN Barbara Starr. Did you 

join us today? Nothing heard. Associated Press Bob 

Burns. Nothing heard. CNN Jamie Crawford. 

Nothing heard, 

Barbara Starr - CNN [00:12:46] Actually. Can you hear me now? This is Barbara 

Starr. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:12:49] Oh, yes, ma'am. Yes, we can hear you now. 

Barbara Starr - CNN [00:12:51] I'm sorry we're late. We were having trouble 

unmuting ourselves because we were late in filing. 

And, could we just get your assessment of what you 

are hearing from Congress, any one of you that 

wishes to respond, what you were hearing from 

Congress about a possible resolution to this, to you 

see where do you see the support and who's 

opposing you? 

Nahaku McFadden [00:13:16] A General Neely, would you like to begin? 

Maj Gen Rich Neely [00:13:19] Yes, I'd be happy to. Thank you, Ms Starr, for 

joining us today. This, as we all know, there's some 

challenges in Congress and working through budget 

issues. Much like any other year, we're hearing of 

definite support for the National Guard. There's 

definite support and appreciation for everything 

we've done, rather, was the Covid mission or 

following throughout the year of civil disturbances 
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in twenty twenty and and then the response for the 

Capitol response mission. And so all of that's been 

very, very favorable. And we couldn't ask for more 

support from communities across our nation. 

However, this is just one of those things that in the 

the budget cycle is got stuck and has not made it 

through because of many other issues that are 

pressing in Congress. So, you know, this is the time 

for the commanders in the field, the Adjutant 

generals, to highlight this issue. National Guard 

Bureau has done everything they could do. They've 

asked for the reimbursement. They try to front the 

money up front and to provide that for us. And 

unfortunately, we're at this point now where we 

have to start looking at what it will take to shut the 

National Guard down to recover these funds at the 

end of the year, that they just will not be in our 

coffers going forward. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:14:49] Thank you, sir. Any additional generals would like 

to add anything more to that? General Lyle's. 

Brig Gen Dale Lyles [00:15:00] Thank you the Indiana congressional delegation all 

support the reimbursement of the pay and 

allowances that we paid for our cash flow, and they 

all understand the degradation to readiness if they 

don't do that and they're working very hard inside of 

Congress to ensure that we get reimbursed. It's also 

something that we need to be reimbursed, timely, so 

that we can get these into our accounts in order to 

assure that we can conduct our August and 

September pre plan training on the dates that we 

have set aside to do that. So they're working very 

hard to do that. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:15:37] Thank you. Moving on, we're going to Megan 

Myers from Military Times. 
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Meghann Myers 

Military Times [00:15:45] You mentioned the security forces systems brigade 

and how that might get hung up. Can anybody 

break out any more, any missions or training that 

are Army or Air Force specific and how this lack of 

funding will affect those different components? If 

it's different for each one. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:16:06] General Lyles, would you like to begin? 

Brig Gen Dale Lyles [00:16:08] Sure, I'll start. Yeah, so I mentioned the Security 

Forces Assistance Brigade. We also have an 

emerging mission along the border that we are 

going to start training some of the companies and 

the aviation unit that Indiana is going to supply 

military police company and an aviation 

detachment along the border later this fall. And we 

need to start manning training and equipping those 

two units in August and September in order to 

deploy them by October and November. And so our 

inability to conduct that pre planned training is 

going to hinder our ability to get them on the border 

in a timely manner. And then Indiana is also the 

headquarters company for the security assistance 

brigade that I mentioned previously. And so that's 

why I'm familiar with that particular brigade. So for 

Indiana specifically on the Army side, it relates to 

that. Additionally, we have a 122nd fighter wing 

and an intelligence wing in Indiana, and the same 

things apply to those units. Their ability to conduct 

flight hours and to participate in their pre-scheduled 

training is all at risk. So we have 22 A10s at our 

fighter wing. And those pilots rely on August and 

September to train in order to maintain proficiency 

in currency in the aircraft. And all of that is at risk 

as we speak. 
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Nahaku McFadden [00:17:37] Thank you, sir. General Driscoll, how about from 

Massachusetts? 

Brig Gen John Driscoll [00:17:41] So Massachusetts, thank you. Make him for that 

and kind of bring it down to that soldier level for a 

couple of reasons. One, we had a battalion 

scheduled to go to Fort Drum for annual training. 

And unfortunately, you know, they work all year 

through their drills. And I use the analogy of a 

football game. The weekend drills are like the 

practices and the annual training. That 15 day 

period is like the game. And of course, the Super 

Bowl is when you go overseas and trained in the 

combat. So would they unfortunately have to be 

pulled from that because they're unable to execute 

that with paid allowances and the other money to go 

along with just supporting that and bringing it down 

to the individual level, not being able to August and 

September, drill really affects the new Army 

combat fitness test because the Army set forth by 

the end of August 31, that we have every soldier has 

to do a diagnostic army combat fitness test to 

establish the baseline on where to go from there 

with us without being able to do that in August. 

Again, it sets that back now that that's easier to 

move the dates. But again, you can see the 

downstream effects of not being able to do the 

training in August and September. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:18:53] Thank you, sir. General Neely. 

Maj Gen Rich Neely [00:18:57] Yeah, I would just like to pile on a little bit to both 

General Driscoll and General Lyle's comments. It's 

about readiness. And I mentioned it a little bit of 

that in my opening comments, you know, would 

much like Indiana. We we have two flying wings, 
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Air Force flying wings. That and as an operation of 

the National Guard, as an operational reserve, that 

means that the United States Air Force, the United 

States Army count on us to be ready to deploy at a 

moment's notice around the clock. They count on us 

to be when they provide us a deployment for the 

future, they count on us to be prepared to deploy. 

And so those in the state of Illinois, we KC-135s 

that refuel all types of aircraft, not just Air Force 

aircraft, just not Navy, all kinds of different aircraft 

across the board, and they fly all over the world to 

do that mission. We have C-130s to do those same 

things. We have soldiers that, as General Lyles 

talked about, they're preparing for the Security of 

Forces Advisory Brigade. They're preparing for 

future an exercise as well as future deployment 

possibilities. And so each one of these are 

significant. And I just revisit not only the unique 

thing about the National Guard is that we're that one 

organization that not only has a federal deployed go 

to war security national security mission, but we 

also have that mission here at home where, you 

know, support to our states during emergencies, 

which we've seen during covid we've seen right 

now in California as we're flying missions and 

wildfires. When hurricanes come on our coast in 

Florida, as they did a few weeks ago, the National 

Guard is there. And so goes back to our motto, 

always ready, always there, because we have to be 

prepared at a moment's notice to respond. And so 

this not only affects national security, but it also 

affects homeland and our states and our 

communities, the security that we have there on top 

of the tragic challenges that it creates for our 

soldiers and airmen. 
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Nahaku McFadden [00:21:09] Thank you, sir. Moving on, we have Defense One, 

Tara Copp. 

Tara Copp - Defense One [00:21:17] Hi, thank you. I apologize, I've been trying to dial 

in on both the desk phone and my cell phone, so if 

I'm echoing, that's all on me, my apologies. Could 

you all of you put it in perspective. We have 

wildfires. We have hurricane response. There's 

potentially covid resurgence. How will this impact 

your ability to respond if this funding doesn't come 

through or if you have to cut training and exercises 

to the point where you don't have ready forces to 

respond? Thank you. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:21:56] General Driscoll

Brig Gen John Driscoll [00:21:59] Thank you very much, Tara, for that question. Do 

we look at it both through the federal lands and the 

state lands? The state lands? Everything we do is 

primarily within the state, even though we're federal 

force. But we still have that state nexus in our key 

training dollars come off of that federal training 

dollars, which then what happens in August and 

September. So we will be degrading our readiness 

in a sense that we'll be ready, but we won't be as 

ready using the analogy, hey, you know what? The 

game's next week, but we're not going to practice 

for the last five days. We can wait. And 

unfortunately, you know, yeah, you can still play, 

but you won't be at your peak. You won't be you 

won't be as Focus's in the game. But again, to that 

goal since 1636. Always ready. Always there. We 

will, we will. We never say no and we will make it 

work as we did with the capital response. We came 

in, we flew in twenty five thousand soldiers and 

that's as I looked at that number. That's 

phenomenal. That's more soldiers than we had on 
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Utah Beach at D-Day. We did that within a two 

week time. So again, always ready, always there. 

But again, without that training, our readiness will 

start slipping away. And again, it goes back to that 

time factor. We can't get that time back. And the 

other part of that scheduling, these training 

exercises scheduled a year in advance each day 

plans or yearly training calendar. And when in the 

end, predictability is General Lyles and General 

Neely mentioned. Without that, it really hurts us to 

to go forward now. And how do we make up that 

training? And then as we pull it forward, what are 

we not doing to get caught up again? So it starts it 

starts accumulating effect like a snowball. If we 

don't get this going, can we recover? Well, 

absolutely. But again, will we be as ready? 

Definitely not. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:23:51] Thank you, sir. General Lyles, do you have 

anything to add? 

Brig Gen Dale Lyles [00:23:55] Sure. Just very briefly, so from a National 

Guardsman perspective, the month of August and 

September are two of the highest training volume 

months in a National Guardsman's year. We set 

aside the summer months for our annual training 

periods. And then we have we push those into 

August and September because of the capacity on 

our ranges. So it is if you cancel an annual training 

period and two individual training periods the 

month of August and September for guardsmen, 

you have in essence cut almost 50 percent of their 

training days that prepare them to deploy 

domestically and internationally in response to 

whatever missions that the president or the governor 

has set up for us. So canceling August and 

September will degrade the proficiency of a 
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guardsmen by at least 50 percent by enabling them 

not to do their training in August and September. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:24:56] Thank you, sir. We're going to move on NBC News 

Courtney Kube. Are you here, Courtney? Nothing 

heard. Bloomberg, Travis Tritten. 

Travis Tritten - Bloomberg [00:25:13] I don't have a question. Thank you. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:25:15] Thank you, Travis, for being here, NGAUS 

Magazine, Drew Brooks. 

Drew Brooks - NGAUS Magazine [00:25:21] 

Yes, thanks for doing this. Can someone go into 

more detail on what the loss of time and 

maintenance time might do for individual 

guardsmen and unit readiness.

Nahaku McFadden [00:25:38] Thank you, General Neely, would you like to 

begin? 

Maj Gen Rich Neely [00:25:41] Sure, I'd be happy to. So that's a that's a bit of a 

challenge, challenge, question to quantify. But what 

we understand is that, you know, we're talking 

about maintenance or our army aviation assets, our 

Air Force C-130, KC, 135s here in the state of 

Illinois, rather, we're talking about the maintenance 

of our vehicles. All of that takes time. And when 

we've mentioned along the way here is that we're 

going to lose that, you know, we're still working 

through what are these actual impacts, but with a 

loss of full time manning where a lot of that 

maintenance is done day to day, you can 

significantly impact not only the readiness of those 

those aircraft in our vehicles, but it will slow a 

response down in the future. And those are the key 

terms that we talk about, being ready, you know, 
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being an operational reserve, not a strategic reserve, 

as we were back in the coming out of the Cold War, 

but an operational reserve that the deploys with the 

active duty components and we're depended on to 

be a bridge to support them for that. So that's where 

we see those significant impacts with readiness. 

And, you know, that not only have a human face to 

it, but also have a readiness concern there, not only 

for our personnel, but our equipment as well. Hope 

that helps. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:27:13] Thank you, General Lyle's. 

Brig Gen Dale Lyles [00:27:17] Equipment readiness on the army side will be 

degraded because of the full time support that's 

required to man the shops and the shops that 

actually repair and do the services and other things 

to our equipment. So the full timers that work in 

those shops could potentially be unemployed for for 

several pay periods because we do not have the 

funds to pay them. Now, that will significantly 

degrade the readiness of our combat vehicles and 

other army components in regard to our air air 

support and air maintenance. The same thing 

applies that, Ridge said. The full time support that 

provides maintenance to the jets, to the engines, to 

all of the things that sustain those weapons systems 

could potentially also be laid off or furloughed over 

multiple pay periods because those are some of the 

accounts that we use to pay for the operation capital 

response. Additionally, our logistical folks are 

indicating that they will not be able to purchase 

some of the things that they had been planning on 

purchasing to ensure that our equipment levels were 

at its highest readiness in August and September 

and those would have to be delayed or deferred into 

the next fiscal year. 
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Nahaku McFadden [00:28:39] Thank you, sir. Moving on, a Washington Post 

Karoun Demirjian. 

Karoun Demirjian - Washington Post [00:28:45] 

Hi, I have a question for the the generals, especially 

those who were physically part of the capital 

response to it seems like there's pretty much 

agreement on both sides of the aisle that you all 

should be reimbursed for the work that you did. But 

people are getting stuck on arguing about whether 

there should be additional things paid for, like rapid 

response forces in D.C. that can be ready to go 

before calling in the National Guard. And did you 

have any opinion on on those debates, too, just 

given that they're part of the general stuckness of 

this issue that's compromising your your own units 

now? 

Brig Gen John Driscoll [00:29:21] Well, I can speak to that being on the ground, but I 

really can't comment because I we left in May. So 

all that talk of it was in the background and we were 

pretty much mission focused and really didn't get 

into that. But going up, going thinking about the 

soldiers coming back and to the points of our 

generals, just to get back into the drilling 

guardsmen to become that operational force, we 

need to get back into, like we say, back to drills, 

back to our mls'. Because a lot of our soldiers that 

went down to camp on a response, they weren't 

trained to be security. But it shows you the 

resilience of the National Guard. We are like the 

Swiss Army knife of the DOD, because they put us 

in a mission. We had truck drivers, we had 

mechanics, anybody other than security police, 

because a lot of our governors keep those military 

police close hold because of the civil disturbance 
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aspect of what was going on in the States. We spent 

a lot of folks down there and they just did a 

phenomenal job being trained in security 

operations. But now they're coming back to train in 

their state and trying to get back into that August 

and September drill to really set the conditions for 

2022. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:30:40] Thank you, sir. General Neely. 

Maj Gen Rich Neely [00:30:42] Yes. And thank you for that that question. You 

know, I think what's most important is that that we 

wrote that the Congress really addresses the issue 

with a budget shortfall of the National Guard was 

asked to come to a mission. We were asked each 

one of us asked the generals and our governors 

received a call from the national level and was 

asked to support this mission at the national level, at 

the Capitol. And what's happened, it seems like, is 

that a lot of other things have got mired into that 

discussion. And there's a lot of really smart people 

looking at the best way to secure the capital. And I 

think it's important for the National Guard really to 

stay out of that conversation. That's a civilian leader 

decision that will be made with the best approach 

going forward. We responded based on the need at 

the time, and much like General Driscoll said, 

where we jump into many of these different 

missions when no one else is able to respond, when 

there's no other capacity, we use our skill sets. We 

haven't responded to a pandemic in 102 years, and 

the National Guard did some incredible things to 

support in many different ways during the pandemic 

and as well as firefighting and the response to 

hurricanes and all those other things that we do. 

And so I think it's important for us not to get to let 

this discussion get pulled into a discussion about 
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what's the best security for Capitol Hill. It's 

important for leaders in Washington to figure out 

and at all levels to figure out how to take care of the 

National Guard soldiers and airmen that have 

supported them. Thank you.

Nahaku McFadden [00:32:29] Thank you, Sir. Moving on to the Hill, Rebecca 

Kheel. 

Rebecca Kheel - The Hill [00:32:36] I don't have a question today, but thank you. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:32:38] Thank you, Rebecca. Haley Brtizky from Task and 

Purpose. Can you join us, Haley? Nothing heard. 

Do we have a WUSA TV, either Mike Vallerio or 

anyone else from WUSA? 

Reporter - WUSA TV Channel 9 [00:33:04] 

Yes, I am here with Channel Nine. My question is, 

will this funding shortfall effectively certain states, 

but the entire national guard? And also what is the 

confidence level this funding will get passed? 

Nahaku McFadden [00:33:13] Since there's a National Guard level of a question of 

General Strong, do you have anything that you 

would like to add regarding that? 

BG Craig Strong [00:33:28] Yes, hi, thank you for that. Yes, overall, this will 

have an effect across all the 54 states, territories and 

the District of Columbia on the whole and for all 

the reasons that have been perfectly framed by 

General Neely, General Lyles and General Driscoll, 

there is an effect on their readiness accounts to train 

and equip the soldiers and airmen across the 54 

states, territories and the District of Columbia. So, 

yes, there will be this impact is definitely a national 

situation. Over. 
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Speaker 8 [00:34:05] Thank you, sir. 

Haley Britzky - Task & Purpose [00:34:07] 

Hi, this is Haley Britzky. Can I jump in? 

Nahaku McFadden [00:34:11] Go ahead. 

Haley Britzky - Task & Purpose [00:34:12] 

Yeah, thank you. Sorry, I was having a technical 

issue, but I believe it was General Neely and his 

opening remarks. He said that the lack of funding 

was sending a terrible message. I was just 

wondering if either you, General Neely, or really 

anyone on the call could elaborate a bit more on 

what that message is that you're receiving from 

Congress as this funding is up in the air. 

Maj Gen Rich Neely [00:34:35] Well, the last question really got to the question of 

what's the chances that the funding is going to occur 

and we would be having this teleconference today if

we had a high confidence that we would get the 

funding in time. We're very concerned that the 

funding would come. And as I said a few minutes 

ago, you know, we've received incredible support 

from our congressional delegation. They're all very 

supportive of wanting to get this this money to the 

National Guard. They understand what we've done 

over the last 16, 18 months, from covid to the 

support of the inauguration and post six January. 

But the issue about the challenges or create is and I 

see this in the faces of my soldiers, my airmen, 

when I call them to duty. Right. And and we've 

called thousands of our soldiers and airmen from 

the state of Illinois to duty. And I've asked them, 

you know, it's we have to remember that they're part 

time. They're full to their full time jobs, full time 

commitments, full time families. And we pull them 
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from their homes and we we call them to duty. And 

every one of them ask me the question they have 

when they leave their homes is when do I come 

back? When am I coming back? And I can't give 

them those answers when we respond to things like 

the capital mission because of this. And so we've 

asked them to do some incredibly difficult things 

over the last 18 months. And now we're turning 

around and saying the contract we have with you, 

that we will pay you for each month and you will 

report for drill and we'll pay you to go to training 

and and you have predictability, which is important 

for their families and employers. We're now going 

back on that. And I feel horrible as a leader having 

to go back and tell my soldiers and my airmen that I 

may not be able to pay them for August and 

September drill those those checks that they count 

on to not only support their families, but to feed 

their families and go to college and do those kind of 

things that our National Guard does. And so that's 

the concern I have, let alone our full time 

employees who have who came to work during a 

pandemic, who ensure the National Guard could 

deploy and support their state. They're the ones that 

support us. So that's really what I'm speaking to 

about the incredibly negative impact that will have 

on our not only our readiness, but on the morale and 

probably retention of our soldiers and airmen long 

term hope that helps. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:37:23] Thank you, sir. General Lyle's. 

Brig Gen Dale Lyles [00:37:28] Thank you. So one of my primary responsibility for 

the men and women that serve in the Indiana 

National Guard is to ensure that I set the conditions 

for them to be able to train and to be manned and 

equipped to lead to a degree that allows them to 
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respond to the president's or the governor's request 

to provide security to our nation or to respond to a 

domestic environment that's been neither made by a 

natural cause or manmade. In my inability to allow 

our soldiers to execute our airmen, to execute all of 

the training days that we have been allotted causes 

me to breach that trust with them. And so it's really 

a matter of trust. They our soldiers and airmen want 

to come to drill and they want to come to annual 

training periods in order that they can train to a 

level of proficiency so that they can serve their 

nation and so that they can serve their state. And not 

being able to do that in August and September just 

degrades their ability to respond. And it also harms 

my ability to properly lead them and provide them 

with what they need to be ready to go. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:38:46] Thank you, sir. This is going to be our last question, 

if you have questions that perhaps we didn't get to, 

that you would like us to respond. You can send 

those to our media desk. But do we have American 

military news, Brian Morgan? 

Ryan Morgan - American Military News [00:39:06] 

Yeah, can you hear me? Yes, we can. OK, thank 

you. My question is about March, about half a 

march, this was two months into the capital 

deployment. There was a decision made to extend 

the mission by another two months. It's about four 

months of deployment. Is anyone at this time 

raising these budget issues, these budget concerns 

hey we're overstepping the budget here where we're 

going to run out of money later on down the road? 

Was anyone foreseen this issue? And I guess we're 

now what are you doing now to make sure these 

kinds of problems don't happen in the future? Make 
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sure you have the feedback loop to prevent this 

from happening again. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:39:58] General Strong, would you like to begin? 

BG Craig Strong [00:40:03] Yeah. Thank you for that question, Ryan. And 

during this situation and the funding requirements 

that have been tracked and estimated and 

communicated since the continuation of the mission 

that occurred in March, as far as the ability to 

address these costs as it was being cash flow 

through the National Guard and with the reasonable 

assurance that either a supplemental appropriation 

or a reprograming action would satisfy the bill that 

was cash flow. So it has been on the radar. The 

balancing of the priorities across the department has 

been was assessed and continually this cost would 

be addressed in some fashion for all the reasons that 

have been somewhat discussed earlier. And I can't 

I'm not in the position to discuss the legislative I 

don't work the Hill. So where this is in order to 

satisfy that cost estimate is where we're at right 

now. And hopefully that resolution will occur as 

soon as possible. I know that the prudent measures 

that are being taken at this point in the case of the 

Restoril not occurring is what we're discussing 

today. And as the Chief National Guard bureau has 

done, in order to provide proper notice to those 

effects and with the support of the our partners in 

DOD and across the 54 with the TAGs that are in 

position, we are looking for hopefully a resolution 

that would not cause undue harm, as that has been 

discussed throughout this call. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:42:13] Thank you. So we're going to go through General 

Neely, would you like to have some parting 

statement? 
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Maj Gen Rich Neely [00:42:22] Sure, thank you for that. And, you know, just to pile 

on just a little bit to a General Strong stated here at 

the end, I think it's important to note that with the 

response to the national capital mission, this was the 

first time something like this has happened. It was 

emergency, much like a 9/11 type of an event where 

planning hadn't been in place to how we would fund 

this. And I can strongly say that we've had great 

discussions between the chiefs, the National Guard 

bureau and the generals and the governors, too. And 

there was a high confidence that the reimbursement 

would be coming. And it's unfortunate that other 

things have slowed it down. But I do want to say 

thank you to all those that joined us today for taking 

the time to to try to understand this complex story a 

little bit more. This is about our America's best, 

right? Those service members that raise put their 

hand up and raise and take an oath to the 

Constitution that say they will serve. It's about 

keeping their trust and confidence in a system, in 

their National Guard, in their leadership, as as 

General Lyles mentioned earlier, that is so 

significant to make sure that that they did their part. 

They reported when they were supposed to. They've 

responded in incredible ways over the last 18 

months. And it's up to us to try to find a way to 

ensure that they're able to drill, that we're 

continuing on a readiness, that we're able to 

continue to support not only our national missions, 

but respond in our states if there's an emergency in 

the National Guard, is needed. So, again, thank you 

for joining us today. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:44:20] Thank you, sir. General Lyle. 
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Brig Gen Dale Lyles [00:44:24] I'll just conclude with restoring the funds that we 

cash flow in order to sustain the operation, capital 

response will ensure that the National Guard is 

ready to respond to a domestic disaster or an 

international disaster and to meet the requirements 

of our nation and to provide the security apparatus 

that we are charged with providing. And doing that 

in August, September will go a long ways of 

ensuring that we are able to do that. Thank you. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:44:56] General Driscoll, 

Brig Gen John Driscoll [00:44:58] Thank you very much again to everybody joining us 

today and the luck to tackle everything that's been 

said so far. Restoring the funding is not only taking 

care of the soldiers, it's taking care of their families. 

It's renewing that faith and confidence that they 

have that we're always going to be always ready, 

always there, and also for their employers who 

made their sacrifices, too. So I have to get that in 

there because we can't do what we do without the 

support of the families, but also the employers. So, 

again, restoring that funding just makes it right. 

And this restores the faith and confidence and trust 

in our soldiers and gives them that training to exude 

that confidence. So from the governor's call, when 

the president calls will always be ready, always 

there since 1636. Thank you. 

Nahaku McFadden [00:45:43] Thank you to everyone who attended. This 

concludes our media roundtable and have a great 

day. Thank you so much. 

Duration: 00:45:43 minutes and 43 seconds

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