{"id":48619,"date":"2021-10-24T15:49:01","date_gmt":"2021-10-24T15:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/10\/24\/people-are-relying-on-us-national-guard-evolves-to-fight-wars-secure-homefront\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T07:48:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T07:48:23","slug":"people-are-relying-on-us-national-guard-evolves-to-fight-wars-secure-homefront","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/2021\/10\/24\/people-are-relying-on-us-national-guard-evolves-to-fight-wars-secure-homefront\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cPeople are relying on us\u201d \u2014 National Guard evolves to fight wars, secure homefront"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In late August, as Hurricane Ida barreled toward Louisiana, nearly half of the Louisiana National Guard\u2019s 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team<\/a> was deployed overseas, working in Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, and Syria. They\u2019d been there nearly a year, having mobilized the previous fall \u2014 not long after responding to Hurricane Laura<\/a>, which had tied a 144-year-old record for the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the state. Now, almost a year to the day later, Ida was expected to at least tie the record again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the Louisiana National Guard had been mobilized ahead of the storm, along with guardsmen from 15 other states. Across the state, and from halfway around the world, soldiers waited for Ida to make landfall \u2014 not only to respond, but to see how their own communities would fare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had two battalions\u2019 worth of people, and many others in the state, that while they\u2019re on duty, they\u2019re also having to check on their own family and their own homes,\u201d says Col. Larry Benton<\/a>, the rear brigade commander for the 256th and the director of personnel and manpower for the Louisiana National Guard. Ultimately, he had to relieve more than 50 people from active duty \u2014 both in Louisiana and abroad \u2014 because of damage to their houses. \u201cTheir own homes were unlivable,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the new normal for the National Guard: The last two years have seen a rash of domestic crises \u2014 from the Covid-19 pandemic, to historic fires and flooding, to widespread protests \u2014 and guardsmen are often the first line of defense. Meanwhile, as the primary combat reserve of the Army and the Air Force, the guard regularly trains and deploys for overseas missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dennis McCarthy, assistant secretary of defense, and Maj. Larry Benton of the Louisiana National Guard enjoy a light moment during McCarthy\u2019s visit to the troops in Haiti in 2011. The joint humanitarian exercise fell under the command of the Louisiana National Guard. Photo by Sgt. Aaron LeBlanc, courtesy of U.S. Army.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Two decades in Afghanistan and Iraq have proven the military\u2019s essential reliance on its reserve forces. As the security landscape shifts from counterinsurgency and counterterrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan to competition with Russia and China, and as climate change wreaks havoc at home, and as the active forces face a potential drawdown, the guard and the reserves\u2019 jack-of-all-trades skill set means they will be increasingly in demand, balancing new conflicts abroad and greater visibility at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re moving from focusing on the conflict at this moment to thinking about how we shape or are ready for the conflicts that may occur in the future,\u201d says Jacquelyn Schneider<\/a>, a Hoover Fellow at Stanford\u2019s Hoover Institute. \u201cHow do we build a reserve that\u2019s more flexible, that can be ready when we need it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That becomes everybody\u2019s business\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For most of its history, the National Guard\u2019s mission was focused primarily on the homefront \u2014 so much so that during the Vietnam War, joining the guard was considered a pretty safe strategy to avoid deployment<\/a>. While the ploy didn\u2019t always work \u2014 thousands of guard and reserve troops served in Vietnam<\/a> \u2014 President Lyndon Johnson<\/a> resisted pressure to mobilize the guard on a larger scale, worried that doing so would stir up even more anti-war sentiment and make political problems for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJohnson, of course, wanted to fight this war on the quiet and on the cheap,\u201d says Andrew Wiest<\/a>, a professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi and the founding director of the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society. \u201cAnd if you mobilize the National Guard, then that suddenly becomes everybody\u2019s business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as the war wound down, and the end of the draft meant a drawdown in active troops, much of the support and logistics responsibilities for the Army shifted to the reserves. This trend was codified in 1973 as \u201cTotal Force Policy<\/a>.\u201d The policy officially designated the guard and the reserves as \u201cthe initial and primary augmentation of the active forces,\u201d meaning that the Army\u2019s full capabilities are spread between the active duty troops, and the reserves and the guard, which would train and surge as necessary \u2014 a cheaper alternative to maintaining a fully capable standing army. It also effectively ensured that any future major overseas engagements would require calling up the reserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the new policy, the reserves improved their training and readiness. But in the years after Vietnam, the concept of the reserves as an essential part of the United States\u2019 warfighting capabilities remained more theory than practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
New York Air National Guard 1st Lt. Harry W. Roberts Jr. was the youngest pilot in the 136th Tactical Fighter Squadron during the unit\u2019s deployment to Vietnam in 1968. The squadron, part of the 107th Tactical Fighter Group, served in Vietnam from May 1968 to April 1969. About 350 Air Guard members deployed to Vietnam with 20 F-100s Super Sabres to fly close air support missions. He ejected from his battle-damaged F-100 and was rescued at sea outside of Da Nang, South Vietnam, Dec. 18, 1968. Photo courtesy of New York National Guard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere you have this guard that\u2019s changed in idea and arguably changed in training somewhat, but hadn\u2019t really faced the rubber meets the road,\u201d Wiest says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While National Guard units did serve in Desert Storm in 1991<\/a>, it wasn\u2019t until 9\/11 \u2014 and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan \u2014 that the military\u2019s reliance on the reserves was put to the test. In the 20 years since 9\/11, more than a million<\/a> reservists have mobilized in support of global war on terror operations. Hundreds of thousands of reservists have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll through the wars, they used reservists extensively,\u201d says Mark Cancian<\/a>, a senior adviser in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A retired Marine Corps reservist, he deployed twice to Iraq. \u201cThey\u2019ve now become a standard part of our war-fighting capability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the United States withdraws from Afghanistan, and the military\u2019s attention turns to China and Russia, Cancian sees this reliance on the reserves continuing. In the Congressional Budget Office\u2019s new report<\/a> describing potential ways to operate with a smaller defense budget, all three proposed options \u201creduced only the full-time, active-duty force, leaving the reserve component untouched.\u201d Why? Because the reserve component\u2019s cheaper to operate and flexible enough to back up active-duty forces, if needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You\u2019re going to be using a lot of reservists\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the National Guard\u2019s 2022 posture statement, Gen. Daniel Hokanson<\/a>, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, highlighted the importance of training for war. \u201cGiven the uncertain future and budget priorities, we expect the Department of Defense to rely on the National Guard more, not less. Therefore, we must be ready to execute our three core missions: fighting America\u2019s wars; securing the homeland; and building enduring partnerships that support our nation\u2019s strategic objectives,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last National Defense Strategy Summary<\/a> specifically emphasized the importance of preparing for war with a high-tech, well-equipped adversary, as opposed to fighting insurgents. Cancian points to a need here for traditional warfighting skills \u2014 \u201ctanks, planes, and ships,\u201d as he puts it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNinety-nine percent of what [the guard and the reserves] do are these traditional kinds of capabilities,\u201d Cancian says. \u201cIf there were conflict in Europe against Russia, or conflict in the Western Pacific against China, or North Korea \u2014 pick your crisis spot, you\u2019re going to be using a lot of reservists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But other skills, like cyber expertise, will come into play as well in the new security landscape. Nearly 4,000 Army and Air National Guard members in 40 states serve in cyber<\/a> units, which have forged strong partnerships with state and local authorities who rely on their capabilities<\/a>. In the last two years, for example, the Louisiana National Guard has helped respond to 90 cyber attacks in the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Senior Airman David Daniel of the Maryland National Guard\u2019s 275th Cyber Operations Squadron (right); Maj. Steven Jackson, the Mississippi National Guard\u2019s assistant intelligence officer (center); and Staff Sgt. Nyesha Bradley of the Louisiana National Guard\u2019s D Company, 769th Brigade Engineer Battalion (left), examine a screen showing information critical to their cyber-defensive roles in Exercise Cyber Shield 17 at Camp W.G. Williams in Bluffdale, Utah, in 2017. Photo by Sgt. Garrett L. Dipuma, photo courtesy of U.S. Army National Guard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The guard has also advocated for the creation of a Space National Guard<\/a> to align with Space Force, which would provide funding and resources, including for work the Air National Guard already does. Nearly 2,000 guardsmen work in specialized space units<\/a>, according to the National Guard Association, and the guard provides 60 percent of Space Force\u2019s offensive electronic warfare capability, as well as a third of the country\u2019s strategic missile warning systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe National Guard brings skills to play that will be incredibly valuable in this Swiss army knife kind of military atmosphere,\u201d Wiest says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The guard has had a tough two years\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Over the last two years, the National Guard\u2019s \u201cSwiss army knife\u201d capabilities were on display somewhere else: back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think, for many years, we just ignored a lot of the domestic roles of the guard,\u201d says Stanford\u2019s Schneider. \u201cWe\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s a hurricane. We\u2019ll throw them in.\u2019\u201d But the layers of crises in 2020 and 2021 have highlighted just how much the nation relies on the National Guard to respond to domestic emergencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the pandemic hit last year, and state guards mobilized, they were tasked with a wide array of missions: staffing testing sites, building field hospitals, ferrying supplies around states, manning foodbanks, and later assisting with vaccine efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were also more unusual missions. Army North\u2019s Task Force 46<\/a>, which is primarily staffed by members of the Michigan National Guard, is responsible for responding to chemical, biological, and nuclear threats in the United States, which requires close training and cooperation with state and local authorities, as well as federal agencies like FEMA. When COVID-19 arrived, the task force canceled its annual exercise and instead deployed<\/a> across the nation, working with FEMA to coordinate the military\u2019s response to the pandemic. More recently, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker<\/a> announced in September he was mobilizing the guard to help fill a shortage of school bus drivers<\/a> caused by the pandemic and the resulting economic turmoil. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul<\/a> floated a similar idea<\/a> to fill potential healthcare worker shortages in the face of a vaccine mandate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Guardsmen with 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team conduct refresher boat training in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 2020, ahead of Hurricane Laura\u2019s landfall in southwest Louisiana. Photo courtesy of Louisiana National Guard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic was just the beginning. Wildfires in the west, flooding in the east, and extreme cold in the south mean that states\u2019 guards are mobilizing regularly, either at home or in support of other states. Guardsmen have also deployed to the southern border, helped resettle Afghan refugees, even served as poll workers in last year\u2019s election. Moreover, the protests over racial injustice that spread across the country in the summer of 2020 meant even more guardsmen were activated for crowd control and civil disturbances. In June of that year, at the height of the protests, more than 120,000 National Guard troops were mobilized, either at home or abroad. That\u2019s more than at any point since World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe guard has had a tough two years,\u201d Schneider says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What we have to do is be prepared\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The guard\u2019s dual mission at home and abroad means that equipment and training that can pull double-duty is particularly important. Federal missions \u2014 which often mean war, or training for it \u2014 come first, but the logistics, skills, and structure needed in domestic emergency response can mirror those on the battlefield, or in an overseas humanitarian response. Things like setting up a security perimeter, clearing a route, or moving into an area quickly and setting up shop have some basic similarities, whether troops are fighting insurgents in Afghanistan, responding to an earthquake in Haiti, or preparing for a hurricane in New Orleans, Benton says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe template that says, \u2018Build the tents, bring the shower, and have the portalets,\u2019 can be a mobile hospital, or it can be an engineer village for a levee breach, or it could be any security mission,\u201d Benton says. \u201cThose templates don\u2019t change. Those become muscle memory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Senior Airman David Daniel of the Maryland National Guard\u2019s 275th Cyber Operations Squadron (right); Maj. Steven Jackson, the Mississippi National Guard\u2019s assistant intelligence officer (center); and Staff Sgt. Nyesha Bradley of the Louisiana National Guard\u2019s D Company, 769th Brigade Engineer Battalion (left), examine a screen showing information critical to their cyber-defensive roles in Exercise Cyber Shield 17 at Camp W.G. Williams in Bluffdale, Utah, in 2017. Photo by Sgt. Garrett L. Dipuma, photo courtesy of U.S. Army National Guard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The same thing goes for equipment. Both the guard and the reserves prize gear that can be used at war or in a domestic emergency \u2014 everything from aircraft and cargo trucks to things like bulk water tank racks. The Army\u2019s modernization priorities<\/a> focus on air and land combat equipment and soldier lethality. According to a recent DOD report<\/a>, the Army Guard\u2019s air and weapons capabilities are generally more modern, in keeping with these priorities. Areas like engineering, logistics, and transportation, which are critical for responding to natural disasters, have more older equipment or shortages of this dual-use gear, the report says. But as Covid continues to surge, and climate change brings more extreme weather, the guard\u2019s domestic missions, and its reliance on gear like this, are unlikely to abate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a briefing at the Pentagon last June<\/a>, Hokanson acknowledged the historic year for the guard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhatever the mission \u2014 combat deployments, Covid, wildfires, civil disturbances, or severe storms \u2014 the National Guard answered every call in 2020 and 2021, as we have for the past 384 years,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we look at the future, however, we\u2019re not really sure what it\u2019s going to look like, but what we have to do is be prepared to meet whatever that demand signal is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Our demand signal is much, much higher\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One challenge the National Guard faces is that the demand signal \u2014 and the strain of service \u2014 isn\u2019t borne equally. Coastal states are more likely to flood; wildfires are more likely in western states. Some states have strong traditions of guard service, while in others the footprint is much smaller. California, for instance, where the National Guard has helped battle wildfire after historic wildfire, has one of the lowest ratios per capita of guardsmen in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo we have to manage our mission sets very carefully,\u201d Major General David Baldwin<\/a>, the adjutant general of the California National Guard, told reporters in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Pfc. LeTicia Thompson, a military police officer with the 35th Military Police Company, Kansas National Guard, hugs her two-year-old son, Julius, after a year-long deployment to the Horn of Africa in 2012. Photo by Sgt. Jessica Barnett, courtesy of Kansas Adjutant General\u2019s Department.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019re in a state that is constantly in a state of emergency,\u201d he said. \u201cSo our demand signal is much, much higher.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Guard tries to offset this issue with mutual assistance compacts and by planning ahead. For years, the guard has met annually to review training and deployment schedules and develop contingency plans for hurricane season. This year, for the first time, they did the same thing with wildfires. In states with high operational tempos, commanders have worked to help soldiers balance military service with family obligations and civilian careers. Some guard leaders have said the demands of the last two years, and the difficulty of maintaining this balance, shows that the service could be bigger<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople are relying on us for more and more mission sets,\u201d Baldwin told reporters. \u201cTo that end, the guard is not big enough and we need to grow.\u201d Additionally, Hokanson is pushing for free health care for guard members, telling legislators last spring that it was his top legislative priority<\/a>. A bill to that effect, the Healthcare for Our Troops Act<\/a>, has been introduced in Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while balancing military service with a civilian career can be difficult, it\u2019s also an area where the reserves see a potential benefit. Particularly in high-skill areas, like space and cyber, reservists can bring expertise from their civilian jobs to their military experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schneider sees an even greater role for this sort of crossover between the civilian and military sides of reservist life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A Bambi bucket, attached to a California Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook from 1st Battalion, 126th Aviation Regiment out of Stockton, Calif., empties water to douse a wildfire in Shasta County, Northern California, Aug. 18. The Chinook was part of the effort to battle more than a dozen wildfires burning the Golden State simultaneously. (U.S. Army National Guard photo\/Staff Sgt. Eddie Siguenza)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the focus should be on how do we build this talent pool?\u201d Schneider says. \u201cWe didn\u2019t expect the pandemic to happen, but wouldn\u2019t it be nice if we had invested in our active-standby list, so that we had a better understanding of who are our epidemiologists, who are our nurses. In the future, there\u2019s going to be skills that we just didn\u2019t even anticipate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there\u2019s anything the last two years have shown, it\u2019s that anticipating the future is both critical and incredibly tough. After recounting months of overseas deployments, mobilizations at home, and four hurricanes hitting the state, the Louisiana National Guard\u2019s Benton described both a challenge and a chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor the last year, this has probably been the most difficult opportunity for us,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Future years are likely to hold even more difficult opportunities, particularly as climate change continues. Domestic emergencies may mean communities become more aware of the National Guard and the breadth of the challenges they respond to\u2014as well as the tension that can come with fighting conflicts abroad while under siege at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Benton says tough times only increase his troops\u2019 commitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur mantra is \u2018Protect what matters,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cOur desire to protect what matters is what keeps us going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This <\/i>War Horse feature<\/i><\/a> was reported by Sonner Kehrt, edited by Kelly Kennedy, fact-checked by Ben Kalin, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sonner Kehrt<\/i><\/a> is a journalist in California. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired Magazine, The Verge, and other publications. She studied government at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and served for five years as a Coast Guard officer before earning a master\u2019s in democracy studies from Georgetown University and a master\u2019s of journalism degree from UC Berkeley.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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