National Guard Unable to Respond Without Proper Equipment
NationalBy Aariel Charbonnet - The National Guard cannot respond efficiently to homeland security and domestic emergencies if it continues to lack the appropriate equipment, military personnel told a congressional committee Thursday.
Washington, D.C. - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - infoZine - Witnesses at a House Committee on Homeland Security subcommittee hearing agreed that the National Guard's equipment shortages, which total about 50 percent, result in slower emergency response times and the inability to adequately respond to disasters of extended duration or widespread impact.
"No matter what your political beliefs about the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, certain facts are undeniable," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the committee chairman. "The conflicts abroad have left our citizen-soldiers at home without enough working equipment and stretched far too thin."
Maj. Gen. Roger P. Lempke, president of the Adjutants General Association, surveyed several adjutants general before the hearing and said that most reported having sufficient equipment to deal with single disasters common to their states.
But, he said, they "fear insufficient quantities to deal with multiple disasters in their states or having to send equipment to support a regional disaster such as Katrina."
Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, echoed Lempke's sentiments. Although the National Guard can handle emergencies one at a time, he said, having to respond simultaneously to a local disaster and a national emergency would severely deplete the reserve armed forces.
"We wouldn't even be operating at 50 percent," said Blum. "This nation can afford to make sure we have the tools we need."
The magnitude of the disaster must also be considered, Blum said. He put the National Guard's response time into perspective.
"Twenty-four hours is a quick response time, but not if you're standing in water over your head," he said.
The witnesses also expressed their concern for the age and condition of the National Guard's equipment.
"It is a common occurrence for the driver of a National Guard truck or the pilot of a National Guard aircraft to be younger ... than the equipment he or she is operating," Maj. Gen. Robert P. French said.
Nearly all of the Guard's 2½ and 5-ton trucks are 35 to 40 years old, the deputy adjutant general for the Pennsylvania Army National Guard said. Heavier trucks, he added, are an average of 20 to 25 years old.
Every minute spent trying to revamp 40-year-old equipment, Blum added, could be spent developing more modern military gear.
National Guard readiness has been most compromised by its involvement in the nation's war against terror. With large numbers of military personnel deployed overseas, state and local governments have had to cope without significant National Guard aid.
The loss of National Guard equipment to fighting terrorism abroad has created two issues, Lempke said.
First, he said, the most valued equipment for emergency response has been the least likely to return from overseas, namely Humvees, trucks, communication equipment and helicopters.
"Secondly," Lempke said, "equipment shortages have become uniform and widespread."
The Army National Guard in Nebraska should have 324 5-ton trucks to equip all the transportation units for wartime missions, yet it has only 147, Lempke noted.
Even Pennsylvania's Army National Guard, one of the nation's largest National Guard forces, has roughly 50 percent of its authorized number of truck tractors and flatbed trailers, 32 percent of its night-vision equipment and 48 percent of the authorized number of fuel tankers, French said.
"I'm concerned we're stretched to the breaking point with equipment and manpower," Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., said.
"The easiest thing to fix is buying equipment," Blum said. "We know where it is; we know how much it costs."
"It's up to Congress to appropriate and authorize the equipment or accept that level of risk," Blum said.
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