Get 'Er done boys (& girls)

[jerry]

National Guard Bureau
FAMILY PROGRAM OFFICE

March 8, 2004, Volume 1, Issue 51










http://www.guardfamily.org/ <a href=...youth.org/</a>


March 8, 2004, Volume 1, Issue 51


Alert Orders Announced For National Guard Rotations Announcement
Guard Units Alerted For Iraq Duty Readiness
Graham wants health care for returning Guard, Reserves Benefits
Officials work on balancing Guard force General
U.S. faces big test in ambitious troop rotation General
The Army works to reorganize the way National
Guard operates General
New Generation Of Soldiers Deploy Deployment
Guard, Reserve reach out to employers Employer Support
National Guard Readies for Iraq Readiness
Slow return of state's Guard troops criticized Reunion
Weekend Warriors Go Full Time Deployment
Soldiers: Work To Win Iraqis' Hearts Worthwhile General
Unit gets Iraq alert Readiness
Oregon Guard Members Alerted, May Go To Iraq Readiness
South Carolina Guard members return from Kosovo Reunion
Members of 142nd on the way home, Guard says Reunion
'Bullet magnets' prepare for Iraqi frontline Readiness
Military Families Band Together After National Guard Alert Readiness
New Jersey Guard Cranks Up Family Support Programs Readiness
CALL TO DUTY ANSWERED WITH PRIDE AND TEARS Deployment
1,000 National Guard troops coming home Reunion
Utah gets 700 soldiers back; 1,900 on alert for
possible deployment Reunion/Readiness
Idaho Guard on alert for Iraq Readiness
N.Y. GUARD MAY GET CALL FOR IRAQ DUTY Readiness
Biggest La. Guard unit on alert Readiness
Soldiers home from a year in Iraq Reunion
Local soldiers coming home Reunion
Thousands of Guard members, reservists fall short in
physical profile standards Readiness
Shades of Green Reopening @ the Walt Disney World Resort Benefits


NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

No. 138-04
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Mar 01, 2004
(703)697-5131(media)
(703)428-0711(public/industry)

Alert Orders Announced For National Guard Rotations

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld approved the alerting of
approximately 18,000 National Guard soldiers for likely inclusion in the rotation
of forces to support operations in Iraq. If needed, these forces would replace
deployed units starting in late 2004 and early 2005.

The Central Command commander continually evaluates the need for U.S. and coalition
forces and makes recommendations and planning projections as to the appropriate
size and composition of the force in Iraq. The National Guard soldiers being
alerted now will be mobilized over the next several months to conduct necessary
training prior to deployment. Mobilized National Guard forces could be deployed
for up to 12 months in theater. The total length of mobilization is dependent on
training requirements and the requirements of the Central Command commander.

The major commands being alerted are the 42nd Infantry Division Headquarters from
New York, the 256th Separate Infantry Brigade from Louisiana, the 116th Separate
Armored Brigade from Idaho and the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment from Tennessee.

This early alert notification provides soldiers time to plan for their deployment,
providing as much predictability as possible for service members, their families,
communities and employers. As planning continues, it should be expected that
additional forces will be identified, alerted, and mobilized.



Guard Units Alerted For Iraq Duty Associated Press March 2, 2004
WASHINGTON - About 18,000 National Guard soldiers from four major units have gone on alert for likely deployment to Iraq late this year or in early 2005, the Pentagon said Monday. The announcement underscores the deepening involvement of Guard and Reserve forces in U.S.-led efforts to quell the insurgency in Iraq and stabilize the country. So far 45 Guard and Reserve members have been killed in action in Iraq and 42 more have died of nonhostile causes. The Guard units alerted are the 42nd Infantry Division headquarters from the New York National Guard, the 256th Infantry Brigade from Louisiana, the 116th Cavalry Brigade from Idaho and Oregon, and the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment from Tennessee. They will be mobilized over the next several months to conduct training before their new assignment, the Pentagon said. The 42nd Infantry Division from New York will be the first National Guard division headquarters to serve in Iraq; other Guard division headquarters have served in the Balkans in recent years. With receipt of the alert notices, members of those units are prevented from leaving the service until 90 days after their mobilization ends. The Pentagon did not say how long they would be on active duty, suggesting it may be less than the 12-month tours required of Guard and Reserve members now in Iraq and of those heading to Iraq this spring. Under the presidential authority used to mobilize for Iraq, they could be kept on active duty for up to two years. The Guardsmen will be part of a larger force, probably totaling about 100,000 active duty and reserve troops, that is expected to take over for the contingent just beginning a one-year tour in Iraq. The length of their mobilization depends on how much training they need as well as the requirements of the Central Command commander, Gen. John Abizaid, who manages the Iraq operation. The Pentagon said additional Guard forces will be alerted and mobilized for Iraq duty, but did not say how many or from which states. Officials said these probably would be combat support and service support units that will be mobilized after the combat units go on active duty. The 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment from Tennessee has about 4,500 members, and at least 4,000 of them have been placed on alert, according to Tennessee Guard spokesman Randy Harris. They include three cavalry squadrons, headquartered in Athens, Kingsport and Cookeville, as well as a support squadron based in Knoxville. Harris said the 278th has not been mobilized for active duty since the Korean War, more than 50 years ago. The Louisiana Guard's 256th Infantry Brigade, with about 3,800 soldiers, received its alert order Monday, said Dusty Shenofsky, spokeswoman for the state adjutant general's office. She said the brigade was on active duty most recently during the 1991 Gulf War. The affected units include the 1st battalion of the 156th Armor in Shreveport, the 2nd battalion of the 156th Infantry in Abbeville, and the 3rd battalion of the 156th Infantry in Lake Charles. "The folks in these units will need to start letting their civilian employers know," Shenofsky said. "They will also want to start doing things like making sure their medical records are up to date, making sure they have wills and arranging for child care if they are single parents." The 116th Armored Brigade, with units in Idaho and Oregon, includes Oregon's 3rd battalion of the 116th Cavalry, headquartered in La Grande, as well as elements of the 1st battalion of the 82nd Cavalry, at Bend. Spokeswoman Kay Frystad said the Oregon Guard already has 1,700 soldiers on active duty for Iraq, including 700 from an infantry battalion that is about to enter Iraq. Monday's alert notification affects an additional 700 from Oregon, she said, although they are not yet on active duty. The alert order applies to approximately 1,000 soldiers with the 42nd Infantry Division headquarters in Troy, N.Y., said Scott Sandman a spokesman for New York's division of military and naval affairs. The alerts were issued well in advance in order to give the Guard members adequate time to prepare for the likelihood of being mobilized. Many Guardsmen and some members of Congress complained that earlier mobilizations for Iraq came with little notice. The Pentagon is relying heavily upon Guard and Reserve troops in Iraq. Three Guard brigades - from Arkansas, North Carolina and Washington state - are part of the current troop rotation, which is in midcourse. They will spend a full year in Iraq, to be replaced by the newly alerted Guard units, if the Pentagon's current projection of troop requirements remains steady.

[jerry]

The State (Columbia, SC)
March 5, 2004
Graham wants health care for returning Guard, Reserves
By LAUREN MARKOE; Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The campaign for full-fledged health care begins anew for the 1.8 million members of the National Guard and Reserves -- including about 30,000 South Carolinians.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has refiled a bill to secure TRICARE -- the military's health care program -- for reservists and members of the Guard.
For most of these soldiers, TRICARE coverage drops when they return from active duty. This year, like last year, Graham and a formidable, bipartisan group of 28 senators are pushing a bill to keep them covered.
Few are confident of success.
President Bush and the Pentagon frown on the measure. And the Senate and House leadership have withheld support.
"It's going to be a tough sell," said Graham, who is a colonel in the Air Force Reserve.
Why?
The bill is expensive -- $7 billion over five years. And the nation is grappling with a deficit that approaches $500 billion.
Graham testified Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee's personnel subcommittee, on which he sits.
He said his bill "pays for itself" because extending TRICARE benefits will go far toward solving expensive readiness problems in the military. About 25 percent of members of the National Guard and Reserves cannot be deployed because they are not healthy enough.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., testified alongside Graham. He noted that 180,000 soldiers -- or 40 percent of American troops in Iraq -- are reservists or members of the National Guard.
"If you're doing the same job, you ought to have the same access to benefits," he said.
On active duty in Iraq and around the world, 4,207 members of the National Guard and Reserves are from South Carolina.
Some progress came last year on health care for reservists and Guard members:
* Those who are unemployed or whose employers do not offer health insurance can enroll themselves and their families full-time in TRICARE -- not just when deployed.
* All Guard members, reservists and their families can enroll in TRICARE as soon as they receive activation orders, as opposed to when they are actually deployed.
* Guard and Reserve members can keep TRICARE for six months after demobilization.

[jerry]

Officials work on balancing Guard force

by Army Master Sgt. Bob Haskell
National Guard Bureau

3/2/2004 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Governors will be able to call on at least 50 percent of their National Guard forces for homeland-defense missions and other state emergencies because of a plan to realign Army and Air Guard units during the next few years, the chief of the National Guard Bureau said.

"We will balance our forces, focusing on the right force mix and the right kinds of units with the right capabilities in every state and territory," said Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum while addressing the National Governors Association's winter meeting here.

The intent is to have no more than 50 percent of the 460,000-person Guard force involved in the nation's warfighting effort at any given time. With this, between 50 and 75 percent of the force can be available "on a no-notice, immediate basis" for missions on their home turf, General Blum said.

"We must develop a predictive deployment model ... that ensures the [Guard] force is managed to permit (about) 25 percent to be deployed to the warfight; with another 25 percent training to replace those already deployed; and ensuring that a minimum of 50 percent remain available to the governors for state missions, homeland defense and support for homeland-security operations," General Blum said.

"To get to this end-state, we are going through a top-to-bottom rebalancing nationwide," he said. "It will result in a more evenly distributed burden-sharing throughout the Guard, enhanced capabilities in the National Guard in each state and a better level of predictability for when the force may be needed."

The model will be based on a goal of no more than one substantial deployment every five or six years for Guard soldiers and one deployment every 15 months for Guard airmen, he said.

General Blum also asked the governors to support legislation that the Defense Department has proposed to expand the authority of Title 32 of the U.S. code.

"The proposal would permit expanded use of federally funded National Guard forces, under the respective governor's control, for homeland defense and support for homeland-security operations,” he said. “This is the best of both worlds for all concerned.”

The 367-year-old National Guard has already transformed itself into a more reliable, ready, relevant and accessible force for the war against terrorism, General Blum said.

"To date, your adjutants general have consolidated 162 ... headquarters organizations into 54 standing joint-force headquarters," said General Blum, who initiated the transformation in May.

"In times of emergency, your standing joint-force headquarters provide for rapid response and better integration of National Guard assistance from your neighboring states through existing emergency mutual assistance compacts," General Blum said.

"Additionally, the standing joint-force headquarters provide improved access to all Department of Defense assets within your state or territory, should they be needed," he said.

"We do not foresee a reduction in the number of people in the Guard," General Blum said. "We do see a National Guard with enhanced capabilities to perform all of its missions."

Guardsmen have performed extremely well during the war against terrorism, General Blum said.

"In combat, the performance of our soldiers and airmen has been magnificent," he said. "They bring civilian-acquired skills and life experiences unmatched by their active counterparts and are even more effective because of this. They are America's home team. And they bring your communities and those values to the fight.

At the current deployment rate, 80 percent of the Guard's forces will be combat veterans as well as homeland-security veterans within the next 36 months, General Blum said.

"The numbers vary daily and have ranged as high as 75 percent of one state's National Guard being deployed," General Blum said. "Governors and adjutants general have told me this is unacceptable."

[jerry]

That is why it is time to even the load among all of the states, he said.

"I cannot deliver this model today because our Guard force is not properly balanced ... among the states, nor is it properly balanced among the active, Guard and Reserve [forces]," General Blum said.

"But when accomplished," he said, "it will provide you, the commanders-in-chief, the maximum possible capabilities at your disposal for state missions, homeland defense and support for homeland-security missions.

"This model will ensure that no governor is left without sufficient capabilities in the state," he said.

U.S. faces big test in ambitious troop rotation
March 4, 2004

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Army Lt. Col. John O'Neil and his comrades from the 82nd Airborne Division are weeks from leaving one of the most unstable areas in central Iraq, a place so volatile that soldiers who spend the night there fear they will almost certainly be attacked or killed.
But that grim fact of life is not all that concerns them right now.
Sometime in early April, the Army will hand over the task of patrolling this hardscrabble region to the Marine Corps as part of the Pentagon's plan to replace virtually every U.S. soldier in Iraq this year. No one, including O'Neil, is quite sure what will happen in Fallujah or in other places that will witness this massive turnover of GIs.
In December, the Pentagon began moving 130,000 troops out of Iraq and 105,000 into the country in a series of complex maneuvers -- a rotation that is the largest since World War II. The military has seldom tried a feat this complicated during a peacekeeping operation, let alone a guerrilla war.
"It's important that the locals don't feel that we are abandoning them," O'Neil says.
It has taken the Army many months to develop a sense of trust with Iraqis who have provided intelligence and helped U.S. soldiers bring a measure of stability to a dangerous land, he says.
And that stability may be at risk. The dangers were underscored again Tuesday with the killing of hundreds of Shiites in a series of attacks across the country.
Many historians and military analysts say the Iraq rotations are far more difficult and dangerous than anything that occurred during the Allied campaign to defeat Nazi Germany.
"You do something like this maybe once a generation," says Col. Jim Embrey, a faculty member at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. "But even during World War II, troops basically came into Europe in a safe environment, then rotated into the line."
That is not the case in Iraq. Nearly every day, U.S. convoys, helicopters, base camps and even transport planes come under attack from insurgents firing mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and portable anti-aircraft missiles.
By early May, the Pentagon will have brought home virtually all of its most-seasoned soldiers -- including the Army's 82nd, 101st Airborne and 4th Infantry divisions -- and replaced them with a combination of active Army soldiers, National Guardsmen, Army reservists and Marines.
The move, U.S. military officials acknowledge, is extremely risky. Among the biggest worries:
* Are the new troops -- unfamiliar with the customs, landscape and people of Iraq -- prepared to deal with attacks that analysts say the guerrillas are sure to launch?
* Can Guard and reserve soldiers, who are older and train far less frequently than active-duty troops, cut it in such a hostile and unforgiving environment? Part-time troops who came to Iraq in the invasion or afterward have performed well, but the new wave of Guard and reserve troops will take part-timers from just over 20% of the U.S. force in Iraq to nearly 40%, the highest percentage for a major combat deployment in the past century.
* Will U.S. forces rotating into Iraq lose ground as they try to get the hands-on experience that took their predecessors months to acquire?
The Army's 4th Infantry Division demonstrated the value of cultivating long-term relationships in December, when its soldiers captured Saddam Hussein after doggedly pursuing relatives who helped pinpoint Saddam's hideout.
Much of that detailed institutional memory and those carefully cultivated relationships will depart this spring as new troops arrive after crash courses in anti-insurgency training. On the plus side, experts say, some of the new units will bring fresh ideas.
The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which will replace the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, is already planning to operate much differently than their Army counterparts. The Marines plan to win the loyalty and trust of Iraqis in the "Sunni Triangle," the area where the Iraqi resistance is strongest, by conducting more frequent foot patrols and fewer aggressive raids.
For months, the Marines have rehearsed everything from how to avoid offending Muslims during daily prayers to the proper way to speak to tribal elders.
Best intentions aside, no one knows how the replacement troops will be greeted.
While wary Iraqis watch a provisional government in Baghdad take shape, the new occupation force will be asked to police a country where more than 500 Americans have been killed and hundreds more injured or maimed. Some outside experts fear things are getting worse.
"It could be that Saddam's capture was a new high-water mark, and we're headed back toward civil war," says Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C. He is also concerned that the United States will be left with a smaller force "when the problem doesn't seem to be getting smaller."
Attacks sure to come
Military planners and experts who have studied the rotation plan say guerrillas will almost certainly strike the new forces quickly. The attacks could take place as troops muster in seaports or airfields, or they could occur once units arrive at base camps.
"We think the enemy will try to exploit this," says John Bonin, a military historian at the U.S. Army War College.
The Army is taking the threats seriously, revamping its basic training program so new recruits are taught to avoid roadside explosives, defend against convoy attacks and recognize enemy threats. And both active-duty and Guard and reserve troops are put through rigorous exercises to simulate guerrilla war tactics.
To reduce the risk of a spike in violence, the troop rotations are staggered over the winter and spring so that the experience level in Iraq does not drop all at once.
The departing units will stay a few weeks after the new troops arrive to familiarize them with local habits, intelligence sources and an unpredictable enemy that has mastered the science of remotely detonating bombs and launching mortar attacks.
In Fallujah, advance teams of Marines have driven around with their Army counterparts to glean information that could help avoid casualties. Maj. Grant Williams of the Marine transition team says he already has a good idea how the Marines will do the job differently: More foot patrols to win the trust of the locals the way British troops have done in southern Iraq.
The Pentagon's massive troop swap comes at a critical time for Iraq's attempt at democracy, which is viewed skeptically by the country's three main factions: Kurds in the north, Sunni Arabs in central Iraq and Shiites in the south.
W. Patrick Lang, a retired Army intelligence officer and an authority on Middle East culture, says the new troops will arrive just as Iraq appears to be splintering more than at any time since the end of major combat last May. The Kurds are uneasy over the prospect that the United States will abandon their interests to give the Shiites majority control of the government, Lang says. "The Shiites are standing on the sidelines to see how much action we give them. If they don't get control of the country, it's going to be a rough ride."
Guard's readiness debated
By May, National Guard and reserve troops from the Army and Marines will number close to 40,000 in Iraq and will make up 37% of the U.S. ground force.
Although National Guard units have taken over Army peacekeeping duties in Bosnia and the Sinai, the heavy reliance on part-time soldiers could renew concerns over the quality of Army Guard combat forces.
In December, the Pentagon announced that several thousand soldiers from the regular Army's 82nd Airborne Division would need to stay longer than expected in Iraq because a National Guard brigade from Washington state wasn't ready for its scheduled deployment. It needed work on anti-guerrilla tactics.
The readiness of Guard combat soldiers has been debated within the Pentagon for decades. The issue flared up in 1991 during the Gulf War, when Guard combat troops from Georgia were called up but not deployed because their leaders were poorly trained. National Guard officials have long claimed that the active-duty Army has a bias against part-time troops and cannot evaluate them fairly.