{"id":54596,"date":"2021-06-23T21:25:22","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T21:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/06\/23\/the-national-guard-really-wants-to-grow-the-latest-budget-is-reducing-their-numbers\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T09:24:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T09:24:19","slug":"the-national-guard-really-wants-to-grow-the-latest-budget-is-reducing-their-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2021\/06\/23\/the-national-guard-really-wants-to-grow-the-latest-budget-is-reducing-their-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"The National Guard really wants to grow. The latest budget is reducing their numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Five hundred soldiers is not a precipitous drop in personnel for a force of more than 440,000, but it\u2019s definitely not what the National Guard would have preferred<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House\u2019s budget proposal<\/a>, released in May, would like the Army National Guard to drop from 336,500 to 336,000, while holding the Air National Guard at 108,300. This comes following a year in which more Guard troops were deployed than at any time since World War II<\/a>, Army Gen. Dan Hokanson, the National Guard Bureau\u2019s chief, told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd so we look back at 2020, some states had a significant increase in the amount of [operational] tempo that they had previously had. And so they\u2019ve asked for additional force structure,\u201d Hokanson told Military Times. \u201cThose decisions are made at the secretary of the Army and the secretary of the Air Force level. And of course, like all organizations, we would like to grow if possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Hearings on Capitol Hill get testy between Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and members worried about too much wokeness in the services.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

The Guard mobilized more than 100,000 troops in 2020, to cover everything from COVID-19 support to protest response to hurricane relief and regular overseas deployments, adding up to 21 million days activated, Hokanson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know, it hasn\u2019t just been a long year,\u201d Army Maj. Gen. Bret Daugherty, Washington state\u2019s adjutant general, told reporters in late January. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long 20 years. And I just want to focus on that. We\u2019re all consumed with our domestic operations right now, but it is simultaneous with our overseas deployments, which have not let up one iota.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, there were about 67,000 National Guard troops activated around the world. More than 33,000 of those were doing domestic missions, including those guarding the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and more than 20,000 others doing COVID-19 support, from testing centers to vaccination sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we had a little bit more force structure, it wouldn\u2019t be such a stretch to get these missions accomplished,\u201d Daugherty added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the California and Florida adjutants general agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe bottom line is that as Guard mission sets continue to increase, the demand signal for the Guard goes up,\u201d Army Maj. Gen. David Baldwin, California\u2019s Guard boss, said in January. \u201cWe\u2019re largely victims of our own success in that regard. To that end, the Guard is not big enough and we need to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Air Force Maj. Gen. James Eifert, the adjutant general of the Florida National Guard, told the Florida Senate that month that how his force doesn\u2019t have enough troops to shoulder the demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe cannot adequately support the state\u2019s citizens on Florida\u2019s [hypothetical] worst day with the size of our National Guard at this point,\u201d said Eifert, according to Florida Politics<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He cited the fatigue of current Guardsmen as one of the most pressing reasons to expand his force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the absence of an end strength boost, Hokanson said, states will be able to rely on partnerships with their neighbors should they need a personnel surge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVery similar to what we do during hurricanes, in the case of one of the gulf states, we meet every year beforehand to identify those forces that could come and meet those requirements,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\t