National guard, reserves get help, but need more.

• Author: Eaglen, Mackenzie M.
• Position: POINT OF VIEW

It has been widely recognized that the National Guard is over-committed and under-equipped. Many members of Congress also acknowledge that the challenges facing the National Guard go beyond equipment and personnel to include a lack of institutional power within the Pentagon and antiquated processes for organizing, training and compensating troops.

The equipment shortfalls in the Guard and Reserves have gone from bad to worse during the last six years. Chief of the National Guard Bureau Lt. Gen. Steven Blum noted that in September 2001, the Guard had 75 percent of its needed equipment. Today, that number is less than 35 percent. The recent tornado in Kansas exposed a state-level organization with less than half of its tractor trailer trucks on hand for removing debris and less than one-third of its medium tactical vehicles with the high ground clearance useful during floods.

To meet the demands of the Army's force rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan, combatant commanders mandate that National Guard units deploy with 90 percent to 100 percent of their required equipment. The Guard and Reserves have been transferring equipment from non-deployed units to those preparing to deploy to make up for severe shortfalls. As of July 2005, the Army National Guard had transferred more than 101,000 items to units deploying overseas, exhausting the inventories of radios and generators in non-deployed units.

Transferring equipment from a stateside unit to one that is about to leave the United States causes a vicious cycle that continues with future deployments. In addition, as the conflict in Iraq becomes more protracted, the Guard has had to leave much of its equipment in Iraq so that it can be used by incoming units. The Government Accountability Office estimates that since 2003, Army National Guard units have left overseas more than 64,000 items valued at more than $1.2 billion.

The chairman of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves said that 45 percent of Army National Guard units are "not ready," or ranked at the lowest C3, C4, or C5 ratings. Blum told Congress that no non-deployed Army National Guard unit has more than 65 percent of its gear. He added that only 12 percent of Army Guard units are equipped to "acceptable" levels.

Last fall, senior Army officials committed to spending $38.6 billion through 2013 for Army National Guard equipment. The Pentagon's 2008 budget requests $22 billion for the Army National Guard during the next five years...