National Guard monitors pace of deployments.

• Position: Washington Pulse

The National Guard is keeping a close eye on the pace of deployments being assign to its personnel, said Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau.

A total of 147,000 Army and Air National Guard personnel are deployed in 44 nations around the world, Blum told a Pentagon news briefing. Their missions range from close combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, peacekeeping in the Balkans and Sinai, homeland security and responding to natural disasters within the United States.

"We are watching that very, very closely," he said. "We have to be very careful that we don't...