Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
January 13, 2007
By Jack Dorsey, The Virginian-Pilot
National Guard and Reserve personnel who are mobilized involuntarily would face no more than 12 months on active duty, followed by at least five years demobilized, according to proposals announced by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Currently, they are mobilized into federal service once every 16 to 24 months.
While their overseas deployments have lasted an average of 12 months, unless extended, the troops have been spending an additional six months preparing for deployment.
Gates, speaking at a news conference this week, said when demands require a unit to be mobilized longer than the new standard requires, they will be compensated under a program he will establish. Details weren't immediately available.
The goal for the active force rotation cycle remains one year deployed for every two years at home, Gates said as he discussed the new Iraqi strategy announced by President Bush.
In addition, Gates announced that from now on, future deployments of reservists or Guard members will be as a unit - not as individuals - to maintain what the military calls "unit cohesion."
The practice of filling the ranks of a depleted unit with members from outside the unit, called "cross-leveling," would end.
"That is a real breakthrough," Arnold L. Punaro, chairman of the Commission of the National Guard and Reserves, said in an interview Friday.
"That's the way the Guard and reserves want it and the way it has been done in the past. I think they will welcome this policy change," he said.
Punaro also said that agreeing to a more definitive time line for deployment and longer lead time for families and employers in advance of deployment also should help.
"The Guard has been pushing very hard for that," he said.
While the Pentagon has drafted the proposals for Gates to approve, they are not yet final, according to a Pentagon statement.
Lt. Col. Chester Carter, chief spokesman for the Virginia National Guard's 7,000 Army and 1,200 Air Force members, said Friday from his Fort Pickett office that while details of the proposals could change, "the envisioned mobilization of one year every five years is good news."
When the mobilizations initially began as the fighting increased in Iraq and Afghanistan, they were for one year, then increased to 18 months, he said.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 5,300 soldiers and 2,000 airmen of the Virginia Guard have deployed on federal service either overseas or in country for missions such as helping the Border Patrol along the U.S.- Mexico border.
January 13, 2007
By Jack Dorsey, The Virginian-Pilot
National Guard and Reserve personnel who are mobilized involuntarily would face no more than 12 months on active duty, followed by at least five years demobilized, according to proposals announced by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Currently, they are mobilized into federal service once every 16 to 24 months.
While their overseas deployments have lasted an average of 12 months, unless extended, the troops have been spending an additional six months preparing for deployment.
Gates, speaking at a news conference this week, said when demands require a unit to be mobilized longer than the new standard requires, they will be compensated under a program he will establish. Details weren't immediately available.
The goal for the active force rotation cycle remains one year deployed for every two years at home, Gates said as he discussed the new Iraqi strategy announced by President Bush.
In addition, Gates announced that from now on, future deployments of reservists or Guard members will be as a unit - not as individuals - to maintain what the military calls "unit cohesion."
The practice of filling the ranks of a depleted unit with members from outside the unit, called "cross-leveling," would end.
"That is a real breakthrough," Arnold L. Punaro, chairman of the Commission of the National Guard and Reserves, said in an interview Friday.
"That's the way the Guard and reserves want it and the way it has been done in the past. I think they will welcome this policy change," he said.
Punaro also said that agreeing to a more definitive time line for deployment and longer lead time for families and employers in advance of deployment also should help.
"The Guard has been pushing very hard for that," he said.
While the Pentagon has drafted the proposals for Gates to approve, they are not yet final, according to a Pentagon statement.
Lt. Col. Chester Carter, chief spokesman for the Virginia National Guard's 7,000 Army and 1,200 Air Force members, said Friday from his Fort Pickett office that while details of the proposals could change, "the envisioned mobilization of one year every five years is good news."
When the mobilizations initially began as the fighting increased in Iraq and Afghanistan, they were for one year, then increased to 18 months, he said.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 5,300 soldiers and 2,000 airmen of the Virginia Guard have deployed on federal service either overseas or in country for missions such as helping the Border Patrol along the U.S.- Mexico border.