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 Army: Guard equipment readiness still a work in progress By Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke
                National Guard Bureau
 ARLINGTON, Va., - Equipment readiness in the National Guard and Reserve is still a work in progress, the secretary of the Army told Senate lawmakers on Tuesday. "We've made some successful steps," said John M. McHugh in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. "The personnel readiness ratings have improved about 4 percent this year over last. The equipment right now is at about 79 percent readiness. If you (count) substitute equipment, that raises to about 89 percent, but what that tells us is we - we have a long way to go." Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska asked McHugh and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the chief of staff of the Army, about the significant funding increases in the Defense Department's fiscal 2011 budget to replace aging facilities for both reserve components. "The investment is critical, considering the Guard and Reserve personnel comprise some 51 percent of your end strength," Nelson said. "But your request for Guard and Reserve (military construction), while $1.2 billion, is less than 1 percent of your total base budget and only a fifth of your total MILCON requests." "Certainly, if I were in a Guard or Reserve unit, I'd feel as though I wasn't getting ... what I needed, and we have to admit that," McHugh said. Nelson said some of the Nebraska Guard's units are currently lacking adequate space to store reset and new equipment. For example, he said, Nebraska units lack 33 acres for improved and unimproved parking to store new trucks, tractors and trailers, as well as 8,000 square feet of heated storage and 3,500 square feet of security vault storage. McHugh said there have been "significant challenges" in operationalizing the Guard and Reserve. "Well, that's why in taking them to an operational reserve, it has to be thorough with respect to not only equipment, but to their facilities so that the facilities management is capable of taking care of the equipment and keeping them an operational-ready reserve," Nelson said. "So that's my concern, and obviously, it's your concern as well." "As I said, we're making progress, but it's incremental at best," said McHugh. "I would agree with you." Nelson concluded that if progress is not made, the readiness of the Guard and Reserve will suffer. "What we'll see happen is ... what would be fairly obvious," Nelson said. "That would be a sliding back of the ... capabilities of the Guard and Reserve."
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