The Army Guard is the oldest component of any of the uniformed services. It traces its roots to the colonial militia, and claims a “birth”of 1636. Today, the Army Guard exists in 54 locations that include all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and three territories: Guam, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. There are about 2,300 Army Guard units within these locations and over 350,000 Army Guard members. During peacetime, Army Guard units report to the adjutant generals of their states or territories, or in the case of the District of Columbia, to the Commanding General. Each adjutant general reports to the governor of the state, or in the case of the District of Columbia, the mayor. At the state level, the governors have the ability, under the Constitution of the United States, to call up members of the Army Guard in times of domestic emergency or need. The Army Guard’s state mission is perhaps the most visible and well known. Army Guard units battle fires or help communities deal with floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, snowstorms, or other emergency situations. In times of civil unrest, the citizens of a state rely on the Army Guard to respond, if needed. During national emergencies, however, the President has the authority to mobilize the Army Guard, putting them in federal duty status. While federalized, the units answer to the Combatant Commander of the theatre in which they are operating and, ultimately, to the President. Even when not federalized, the Army Guard has a federal mission to maintain properly trained and equipped units, available for prompt mobilization for war, national emergency, or as otherwise needed. Nonfederalized Army Guard members’ pay and allowances are paid with state funds while federalized Army Guard members’ pay and allowances are paid with federal funds. Typically, Army Guard members enlist for 8 years and are entitled to a number of benefits while serving in the Army Guard, including those for health care, life insurance, and other state-specific benefits. After their enlistment periods, former Army Guard members are entitled to veterans’ benefits, such as veterans’ health care and burial benefits. Army Guard members are required to attend one drill weekend each month and one annual training period (usually 2 weeks in the summer) each year. Initially, all nonprior service personnel are required to attend initial entry training, also known as Basic Training. After Basic Training, soldiers go to their Advanced Individual Training, which teaches them the special skills they will need for their jobs in the Army Guard. This training can usually be scheduled to accommodate civilian job or school constraints. The Army Guard has armories and training facilities in more than 2,800 communities. The Army Guard is a partner with the active Army and the Army Reserves in fulfilling the country's military needs. The National Guard Bureau (NGB) assists the Army Guard in this partnership. NGB is a joint bureau of the Departments of the Army and the Air Force and is charged with overseeing the federal functions of the Army Guard and the Air Guard. In this capacity, NGB helps the Army Guard and the Air Guard procure funding and administer policies. NGB also acts as a liaison between the Departments of the Army and Air Force and the states. All Army forces are integrated under DOD’s “total force” concept. DOD’s total force concept is based on the premise that it is not practically feasible to maintain active duty forces sufficient to meet all possible war contingencies. Under this concept, DOD’s active and reserve components are to be blended into a cohesive total force to meet a given mission. On September 14, 2001, the President declared a national emergency as a result of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States. Concurrent with this declaration, the President authorized the Secretary of Defense to call troops to active duty pursuant to 10 U.S.C. Section 12302. The Secretary of Defense delegated to the Secretary of the Army the authority to order Army Guard soldiers to active duty as part of the overall mobilization effort. Approximately 93,000 Army Guard soldiers were activated as of March 2003. At that time, Army Guard soldiers accounted for 34 percent of the total reserve components mobilized in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The active duty federal missions established in response to the September 2001 national emergency were categorized into two operations: Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Noble Eagle. In general, missions to fight terrorism outside the United States were categorized under Operation Enduring Freedom, while missions to provide domestic defense were categorized as Operation Noble Eagle. For example, Army Guard soldiers participated in direct combat in Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom. U.S. homeland security missions, such as guarding the Pentagon, airports, nuclear power plants, domestic water supplies, bridges, tunnels, and other military assets were conducted under Operation Noble Eagle. The Army Guard also supported federal peacekeeping operations in Southwest Asia with Operation Desert Spring and in Kosovo with Operation Joint Guardian under various other military operations. While on active duty, all Army Guard soldiers earn various statutorily authorized pays and allowances. The types of pay and allowances Army Guard soldiers are eligible to receive vary depending upon rank and length of service, dependency status, skills and certifications acquired, duty location, and the difficulty of the assignment. While Army Guard soldiers mobilized to active duty may be entitled to receive additional pays and allowances, we focused on 14 basic types of pays and allowances applicable to the Army Guard units we selected for case studies. As shown in table 1, we categorized these 14 pay and allowance types into two groups: (1) pays, including basic pay, special duty assignment pay, parachute jumping and foreign language proficiency skill-based pays, and location-based hostile fire and hardship duty pays and (2) allowances, including allowances for housing, subsistence, family separation, and cost of living for the continental United States. In addition, Army Guard soldiers may be eligible for tax advantages associated with their mobilization to active duty. That is, mobilized Army Guard soldiers assigned to or working in a combat zone are entitled to exclude from taxable income certain military pay that would otherwise be taxable. As shown in figure 1, there are three key phases associated with starting and stopping relevant pays and allowances for mobilized Army Guard soldiers: (1) initial mobilization (primarily through the Soldier Readiness Processing), (2) deployment, which includes carrying out assigned mission operations while on active duty, and (3) demobilization. Army Guard units and state-level command support components, as well as active Army finance components and DFAS, have key roles in this process. In addition, there are five key computer systems involved in authorizing, entering, and processing active duty pays to mobilized Army Guard soldiers through the three key phases of their mobilization: Army’s standard order writing system, Automated Fund Control Order System (AFCOS); Army Guard’s personnel system, Standard Installation Division Personnel Reporting System (SIDPERS); Army Guard’s pay input system, JUMPS Standard Terminal Input System active Army’s pay input system, Defense Military Pay Office System (DMO); and DFAS’ Army Guard and Reserve pay system, DJMS-RC. During the initial mobilization, units receive an alert order and begin a mobilization preparation program, Soldier Readiness Processing (SRP). The financial portion of the SRP is conducted by one of the 54 United States Property and Fiscal Offices (USPFO) to verify the accuracy of pay records for each soldier and to make changes to pay records based on appropriate supporting documentation for the pays and allowances that the soldiers will be entitled to receive when initially mobilized. If documentation, such as birth certificates for dependents or parachute jumping certifications, is missing, soldiers have a few days to obtain the necessary documents. The unit commander is responsible for ensuring that all personnel data for each soldier under their command are current. When the unit receives a mobilization order, USPFO pay technicians are responsible for initiating basic pay and allowances by manually entering the start and stop dates into DJMS-RC for the active duty tour that appears on each soldier’s mobilization order. Army Guard pay technicians use JUSTIS to access and record data in DJMS-RC. By entering the soldier’s Social Security number and mobilization order number into JUSTIS, the pay technician can view the pay data in DJMS-RC, ensure that they are complete, and enter any missing data supported by documentation provided by the soldier. If done correctly, soldiers will start to receive basic pay, basic allowances for housing, basic allowances for subsistence, and jump pay automatically based on the start date entered into DJMS-RC. After soldiers complete their initial SRP and receive individual mobilization orders, they travel as a unit to a mobilization station. At the mobilization station, mobilized Army Guard personnel undergo a second SRP review. In this second SRP, mobilization station personnel are responsible for confirming or correcting the results of the first SRP, including making necessary reviews to ensure that each soldier’s records are current. Mobilization pay technicians are required to promptly initiate pays that were not initiated during the first SRP and enter appropriate pay changes into DJMS-RC. The mobilization station commander is required to certify that the unit is ready for mobilization, including ensuring that all authorized active duty pays are in place for the soldiers in the unit, at the end of this process. DJMS-RC will generate certain pays and allowances automatically for each 2-week pay period until the stop date entered in DJMS-RC. If entered correctly, the stop date in DJMS-RC will be the end of active duty tour date documented on the soldier’s mobilization orders. This automated feature is intended to prevent erroneous payments to soldiers beyond their authorized active duty status.