The adjutants general of seven states showed up last week to a meeting of the National Commission on the Future of the Army (NCFA) to plead their case for seamless integration of the service’s active and guard components.

Each of the adjutants, who serve the governor of their state unless called up for federal duty, entered written testimony and a separate white paper on several issues that are facing the Guard following 14 years of war in which it played an active combat role. Most pressing was the issue of maintaining combat formations and equipment in Guard units that will likely redirect their attentions to domestic missions.

Pilots from Company B, 3rd Battalion, 126th Aviation walk to a CH-47 F Chinook helicopter. Photo: U.S. Army
Pilots from Company B, 3rd Battalion, 126th Aviation walk to a CH-47 F Chinook helicopter. Photo: U.S. Army

Maj. Gen. Lee Tafanelli, adjutant general of Kansas, handled the issue of maintaining combat formations and equipment, like the AH-64 Apache gunship, within the National Guard.

“Why do you need combat power in the Guard?” Tafanelli said in written testimony to the commission. “It’s a common question, even from senior leaders. The answer is simple–so we can perform our job, providing cost-effective military capabilities that only the National Guard can offer the country.”

The Guard needs combat formations so it can meet its responsibilities as outlined in the Defense Department’s Total Force policy, which is to provide an interchangeable combat reserve force across the full spectrum of combat, Tafanelli said.

“The Guard simply cannot serve as an operational reserve…if it doesn’t maintain force structure with the Active Component like equipment and capabilities,” he said.

The NCFA as a whole must by Feb. 1 come up with recommendations on a plan to integrate the three Army components in such a way that the lessons and skills learned by soldiers over the past 14 years of war are not lost.

A major concern in the Guard is holding onto the attack helicopters that the Army wants transferred to active-component aviation units for use as armed scout helicopters under a plan called the aviation restructure initiative (ARI).

The ARI arose out of the Army’s need for a new scout helicopter to replace the aging and increasingly obsolete OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. Plans to develop a clean-sheet armed aerial scout were shot down for budgetary reasons before a reworked plan to purchase an off-the-shelf helicopter also was canceled. By phasing out the Kiowa and shuffling UH-60 Black Hawks and Apaches between the active Army and Guard, Army brass figured they could cut $12 billion up front and another $1 billion annually because they would ultimately own about 700 fewer aircraft.

Under the ARI, the Army would completely divest the OH-58D and older A- and C-models used to train pilots while 180 TH-67 Creek helicopters will be sold as military surplus. The active component will lose about 700 total aircraft while about 111 will be moved from reserve to active units.

“Combat arms capability in the National Guard maintains [that there is a single Army], ensuring a robust, mandated operational reserve, ensuring tremendous capability is available to protect the homeland, and connecting the civilian population to the Army that serves it,” said one of the white papers submitted collectively by the adjutants general on behalf of their national association.   

The only reference to Apaches in the NCFA testimony was the first paragraph of the white paper, which asked “Why does the Guard need Apaches?,” saying the question was common among “those who can’t conceive of the rationale behind maintaining in the Reserve Component combat assets that might not have an obvious role in domestic operations.” The paper goes on to rationalize the need for Guard combat formations in general. It does not directly address the ARI and neither does Tafanelli.

Another argument they made in favor of maintaining combat formations in the Guard is that its personnel are cheaper per capita–both deployed and stateside–than an active-duty soldier. The Guard association cites a recent Defense Department study that a reserve component soldier costs 15 percent as much as an active-component soldier when not deployed and about 80-90 percent as much when deployed.

“Skills honed on the battlefield as battalion and brigade commanders translate well to dealing with complex disasters,” Tafanelli said. “Conversely, the experience these leaders gain during disaster response increase highly valuable population interaction skills on the battlefield.”