I

In the Early 1970’s Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater stated “...the state has no use for an Air Guard.” Goldwater himself had been in the Air Force Reserve, a Federal sponsored reserve force of the United States Air Force. Goldwater’s question was the same that I asked myself several times, with no clear answer. I decided to try and find that answer by doing research for this paper.

Personal remarks: I have been a member of the Iowa Air National Guard for almost 23 years. I enlisted with the 185^th Tactical Fighter Group, Sioux City, Iowa in June of 1979. The 185^th is now a Fighter Wing (FW). In 1982 I transferred to the 132d Tactical Fighter Wing (now the 132d Fighter Wing), Des Moines, Iowa and have been there ever since.

The question at the very top is generalized for easier understanding for the non Guard-oriented reader. Currently Iowa has two flying wings, the 185^th and 132d. Each wing contains a flying squadron, which is the actual portion of the unit that flies airplanes. When I enlisted in the Guard, each of these units had 24 A-7D Corsair II aircraft or a total of 48. As times have changed so have military strategies, logistics, and economics. In my 23 years, squadrons have reduced from 24 to 18 and currently to 15, and the planes have changed from A-7s to F-16s. The 185^th in Sioux City will soon convert from these single seat fighters to KC-135 refueling aircraft, which will further reduce their numbers to somewhere, around six to eight.

What is the Reserve: In the first portion of my paper I lay out some important times and events that led to the creation of reserve military forces. Reserves are the “depth” of a military, while those on active duty, meaning they serve full-time in the federal military, are the “breadth”. Traditional reserves are members of a society who have received some military training but have returned to civilian life. They may or may not receive continued training in the future, but all are expected to take up arms when called upon by their country. In the United States there are seven branches of reserve forces: The Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard Reserve; and the Army and Air (Force) National Guard. The first five listed are considered Federal forces meaning they belong to the Federal government, four to the Department of Defense and the Coast Guard Reserve to the Department of Transportation in time of peace.

What is the National Guard: The National Guard is a reserve force of the United States military that for the most part is particular to the United States. National Guardsmen (still the term that is accepted even though women make up a large percentage of the Guard) serve two masters. In times of peace they belong to the individual states and serve at the behest of the state governor. This service can be in times of emergency such as natural disasters or civil disorder. Iowa Guardsmen have quelled riots at state universities during the Vietnam War and have sand bagged residences and property during floods. When mobilized or “called-up” by the Federal government they become members of either the US Army or US Air Force and can serve either domestically or overseas.

Paper Composition: The majority of this paper is concerned with history of reserves and the Guard and the policies that influenced that history.

I. History of the militia, its founding and formulation

The use of reserve military members in war obviously has no clear beginning date. Since recorded history civilians have been called upon to defend their clans, farms, city-states, and eventually their nations. But there is a difference between volunteering in times of need and service in a part time militia. This distinction becomes a vital crux in the policy and usage of reserves in later history. Formal creation of reserves as a part of a professional military strategy has its roots in several countries. I have chosen four historical eras which I felt had significant impact on this military policy.

On October 16, 1066 William, the Duke of Normandy, defeated Harold, King of England, in the Battle of Hastings. As with all wars and battles there were numerous reasons for William’s success and Harold’s failure. One of these may have been Harold’s decision to attack William without his full, and rested army. This was not due to impetuousness on Harold’s part but rather out of military necessity due to the structure of his army.

Prior to the “Norman Invasion”, Harold had fought and won a decisive victory in north Britain over a Viking army led by (Harold) Hardrada allied Harold’s own brother, Tostig. The Anglo-Saxon Army under the English Harold was composed of housecarles, the armed retinue of the English king, and the Fyrd, which was made up of landed and free Englishmen who were bound to serve the king when called upon to protect England. The Fyrd was a tradition that can be traced back to the early years of English history. The Roman/British historian Tacitus described the military formation of German tribes who inhabited Britain circa AD 97. These tribes relied on use of part-time soldiers to bolster their armies. King Alfred of Britain (849-899) later redesigned his army where the Fyrd was designed to act in tandem with the burwaran, the permanent garrisons that the king settled in the newly built burhs (later burghs or burroughs).[1] 20^th century historians talk about the difference between the “select” Fyrd and the “great ” Fyrd, the former being a small professional army and the later a much larger “nation-in-arms”. The service of the great Fyrd was limited to a certain number of days by tradition, and there were no covenants to extend the service should the threat continue. Those members of the Fyrd who reached the limit of their annual service were free to return home.

Harold recalled the Fyrd early in 1066 to stand ready to meet either the Vikings and/or the Normans, which ever the wind and currents would land first. By luck the winds of fall brought Hardrada and kept William in his French harbor. Harold force-marched his army to meet the Viking army at Stamford Bridge where the English were victorious on September 25. The battle had been costly to Harold in numbers of causalities and the term of service for his army was growing short.

Following Stamford Bridge word reached Harold that William and his Norman army had landed. Again Harold forced marched his depleted army south to meet the threat. Supporters of Harold sought to raise additional troops, but on 16 October, with the expiration of their terms of service close at hand, Harold chose to force the battle on William. Harold himself was killed, either by an arrow through the eye, or by William’s own lance, depending on the historian.

The Battle of Hastings of course led to the end of Anglo-Saxon rule and nearly three centuries of Norman domination of England. Had Harold met William with a fully rested and fully complemented army, the outcome may have differed. Harold held the high ground and by maneuver forced William to attack the English army, always a tactical advantage. But because of the use of “part-time soldiers” he was unable to wait.

The use of part-time or citizen soldiers was to remain the basis for the English military. During the reign of the Tudors (1485-1603) the term “militia” was given to that part of the army which only served when called by the monarchy to repel invasion. The service in the militia was mandatory.

During this period of time the continental powers, France and Spain, maintained large, standing armies that greatly strained the national treasuries. The Tudors however were limited in their expenditures by Parliament and preferred to save the funds raised by royal lands for other purposes. But one of Britain’s military advantages was its physical separation from the continent. Any continental power wishing to invade the British Isles would take time to move forces to the coast, muster the needed shipping, board the army, and wait for favorable winds to land it on the British coast. This meant the British had time to raise an army for its defense. This provided an ideal situation for mustering a reserve force. The Tudors however abandoned the tradition of universal service and instead made militia service mandatory for only the landed, the idea being that those with property would fight to defend it and also that since there the crown could seize land there was more suggestion of coercion.

Militia or reserve forces remained in one form or another a fact of English military strategy and the strategy of English colonist into the future. Other countries also began to implement and adapt the British system in their own armies as well.

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1594-1632) was considered a military genius in both tactics and strategy. He ruled Sweden following his father’s death from 1611 until his own death in battle in 1632. Adolphus was one of the first military leaders to see the advantage of the musket over the pike, and he made several adaptations to make it the main weapon of his infantry. He reorganized his army to give it greater mobility and developed tactics that allowed a smaller force to meet and defeat a larger one.

Since war was still sporadic in nature at this time, Adolphus devised a system of conscription where every province of Sweden would provide men for the army when called upon. During peacetime, officers in the army were given land to farm as payment for service. Soldiers were quartered with farmers and worked for payment by the farmer. In return the farmer was able to deduct what he paid to the soldier from his taxes.[2] Under this system Sweden was able to maintain reserve forces capable of many of the military endeavors undertaken by Adolphus while escaping the economic burden that a full-time army would require.

Following the defeat of the Prussian armies at Jena and Auerstadt in October 1806 and the subsequent Treaty of Tilsit and Paris Convention, Napoleon imposed terms on the Prussians in the creation and maintenance of their army. Napoleon stipulated that the Prussians were to have no more than 42,000 men in their army for ten years[3]. To counter this restriction, Field Marshall Gerd von Scharnhorst, along with his protégé Karl von Clausewitz, began a restructuring of the Prussian army. While they were restricted to 42,000 men at one time this did not mean that it had to be the same 42,000 from one day to the next. Scharnhorst began a system of universal military training where conscripts were given military training within regular units and then furloughed and placed into “militias” based on the English model or to simply return home. This reserve or Krümper system allowed the Prussians to maintain a full-time force at the limit of French. Though the Paris convention also forbade militias, the French for some reason chose not to look upon the Prussian use of the loophole as a serious infraction. This would later prove to be disastrous to Napoleon.

The effects of the Napoleonic wars and the defeat and restructure of the Prussian Army were to inspire Clausewitz to write some of the most important theorems on politics and military interactions. In his seminal work On War Clausewitz makes the ubiquitous dictum “War Is Politics By Other (I.E. Forcible) Means”.[4] Politics and the American militia would become bedfellows

II. History of the militia in America pre 20^th Century

With the settlement of the American colonies the need for a militia was established. Protection from attack by natives as well as armed reconnaissance forces to seize new land meant military tactics would be necessary; however the colonists were in no position financially to support professional soldiers. Militia service would be necessary, and it would be different than that currently used in England. Militia service would again be the requirement of all able-bodied men who would equip themselves at their own expense and would muster on regular occasions.[5]

This system began to change as the colonies grew and developed. Militia service remained, but increasingly colonies turned to volunteers for military expeditions. These volunteers were paid for their service to the colony but required no further compensation or maintenance when the mission was completed. The idea of using volunteers to fight wars rather than “trained” militia was a concept that would remain part of American military thinking for the next four centuries and be vexing to the militia, politicians, and the active military.

The first large-scale use of American militia would be during the French and Indian War (1756-1763). The British government attempted to use militia units on a large scale to augment the professional English troops. While militias were good at protecting their own cities or colonies, the wide variance in practices, tactics, and even structures of the individual militia units made their integration into the British army unwieldy. Eventually the majority of the war was fought by trained British regulars augmented by volunteers.

The same problems were facing the fledgling Continental Army during the American Revolution. Individual governors would ignore pleas for militia regiments to join the continental army, or place caveats on their use. Many governors felt that militia could only be used within the borders of their own states and forbade them to engage in military action outside of their own borders. In the end though, as during the 1756 war, the Continental Congress and Army turned to states to raise volunteer regiments to gain independence.

US Constitution. The National Guard proudly points to the fact that they exist because of statutory law as prescribed by the US Constitution. Article I, Section 8. Clauses 15 and 16 are jointly referred to as the Militia Clause.

Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

Clause 16: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;[6]

The Constitution also made a distinction between the regular army and navy, which it prescribed in Clauses 11-14 and the militia, which would haunt both the federal government and the active-duty military.

The new government in reacting to the British government’s abuses it saw during colonial times opposed the creation of a large standing army by the federal government. Rather, with the idea of state rights being paramount, the new federal government preferred that the states maintain militias that could be used by the Federal government during times of national conflict. When not in use by the Federals the states could use the militias as they saw fit to maintain order or for protection. In Article I Congress also had the right to “raise and support armies” and “to provide for … a navy,” but control of these entities was given to the President as Commander-in-Chief. The militia would also fall under the control of the President “…when called into the actual Service of the United States…”[7]. The implication of this was that while the militia could be “federalized” by the President in times of crisis, its primary patron during peacetime would be Congress, not the Executive branch of government. The idea of a “dual controlled” military force was created.

Even the Bill of Rights mentions and supports the maintenance of the militia. The Second Amendment, which today is the focus of gun-ownership rights, was intended as a way for states to arm their militia with weapons. Most early and current regulations provided that militiamen armed themselves. The Second Amendment simply reaffirmed that and released Congress or the federal government from purchasing arms for the militia.

The militia Act of 1792 was the first major piece of federal legislation approved by Congress. Whereas the Constitution gave Congress the power to organize, etc., the militia, the Militia Act was the attempt to do just that. Those in the fledgling democracy who supported a strong central government wanted to enact legislation that would create a national militia system. States-righters on the other hand still feared the idea of the military and federal government being tied and sought to keep the central government out of militia organization, and in the end were the more successful in militia organization. The final Act formally recognized that while the federal government would finance the state militia, the actual organization would be handled by the states. The Act did lay out guidelines the Feds wanted followed, but there were no provisions for forcing the states to follow these guidelines. Militia service was mandatory for all able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 45. This meant militia service was a responsibility and not a right for the populace. In addition each was required to provide his own weapon and uniform.

Both Presidents Washington and Adams sought to get around the use of what they considered ineffectual state militias by expanding the federal army. Congress approved expanding the army during times of crisis but reduced the numbers after the crisis passed. Even Thomas Jefferson, a states-righter, pushed for a militia that was under federal control in peace times.

No other serious legislation or attempts at federal control occurred during the next half century of militia development, or lack thereof, which continued on a state-by-state basis during the early and middle 1800’s. In 1840’s the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York enacted state legislative reforms which set a required number of days each year that the militia had to muster, authorized compensation to members for attendance, and provided that the Adjutant General had authority to disband units that did not meet state requirements. By the late 1850’s Massachusetts had organized its militia into regiments and had established regular militia drills and annual training camps.

On the military side of things the militia again suffered black eyes during two major conflicts. During the war of 1812, as during the American Revolution, many state governors refused to commit militia units to the Federal government. In some cases objections were based on political views of the war, in other cases because governors did not want state troops fighting on foreign soil. These problems with militia call-ups persuaded President Polk and Congress not to call up militias for the Mexican-American War (1846) but rather to ask for volunteers. Militiamen and their units did serve in the American army but only as volunteers and not under their unit designation.

This bias towards existing militia reaches a peak during the US Civil War. Of the 1780 designated units that served in either the Federal or Confederate armies only 15 existed prior to 1861[8]. As had both Madison and Polk, Lincoln never issued a call-up of militias. Obviously many existing state units did serve during the war, oftentimes with no change in personnel at all, but were referred to as volunteers and given different unit designations. Some states did expand their militias and place them as home state garrisons. In 1864 Ohio changed the name of its state militia to “The National Guard” conferring a connection with the US army in name if not in fact.

Martha Derthick, in her doctorial dissertation The National Guard in Politics, contends that the prime period of National Guard formation was the forty-year period from the late 1870’s to conclusion of World War I. By the late 1870’s the modern National Guard was beginning to take shape. There were two driving forces that combined to strengthen the Guard. First were the labor riots that were happening in many states. The introduction of mass production and large-scale mining operations led to large groups of employees, which in turn led to large-scale labor-management hostility. When it turned violent, State governments were unable to quell this hostility with local police. Employers urged the states to increase the size of the National Guard and to better arm the soldiers to ensure domestic order.

Secondly, was the formation of the National Guard Association (NGA). The goal of the NGA during the late 1800’s was passage of federal legislation that would recognize and reorganize the militia as it had been envisioned in the US Constitution[9]. The NGA would realize its goal in 1903 with the passage of the Militia Act of 1903, but it would also work to increase Congressional funding, with limited success during the last quarter century. Guard membership ebbed and flowed during this period with a high of 153,000 in 1873 and a low of only 84,000 in 1885[10]

When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898 the US army still distrusted the use of militias. President McKinley issued a call to the states to provide regiments to serve in the army. Many took this to mean that the states should mobilize their Guard units to augment the federal army, but the army itself wanted nothing to do with state militias who were haphazardly trained under some 47 different standards.[11] Even some governors distrusted their own Guard units. John Leedy of Kansas organized four volunteer regiments rather than mobilize the existing Guard units in his state. These biases by the army, however, led to friction with the state Guardsmen, and under NGA pressure Congress dictated that National Guard troops were to be the primary source of volunteers. Supporters of the federal army in turn tried to pass legislation that would require Guardsmen to join federal units rather than simply federalizing the Guard units themselves. For the first time the Guard flexed its political muscle and was able to persuade Congress not to accept the limitations on National Guard involvement as proposed by the army. However, in reality mobilization of the Guard failed and the expeditionary force was comprised of regular army units such as the 10^th Calvary, and volunteer units such as the 1^st Calvary (The Rough Riders).

The conclusion of the Spanish-American War brought many changes to the American perception of its place in the world and the structure of its military. The US now had a victory over a European foe and as a result overseas colonies of its own. The new US President, Theodore Roosevelt, steered a course of foreign involvement rather than isolationism.

The need for an expanded army to meet the demands of this new involvement was evident, but the way to increase army manpower wasn’t. Secretary of War Elihu Root forwarded the idea of a federal reserve force, that is, reservists who drill and train much like militia but belong directly to the US Army and not the states. In response to this and some NGA pressure, Congress passed The Efficiency of Militia Act of 1903. Also known as the Militia Act of 1903 or the Dick Act for its author, Congressman Charles Dick of Ohio a long-time National Guardsmen, it repealed the Militia Act of 1792 and in its place made a number of changes in regards to federal involvement in the Guard. First and foremost it divided the state militias into two groups, the Reserve Militia and the Organized or sometimes called Select Militia. It did not immediately create a US Army reserve but paved the way for its creation.

The Reserve Militia was still the able body of men in a state between a prescribed age, usually 18 to 45. The Reserve militia would receive no support from the Federal government but could, in time of national crisis, be drafted into military service. This portion of law of course was a restatement of the old Militia Act of 1792 and left the door open for conscription.

The gist of the act was the creation and recognition of the Organized or Select Militia. Congress now officially recognized the National Guard as the primary reserve to the active army. The President could order state governors to activate Guardsmen for up to nine months though service was restricted to within US borders. This point is important in that it maintained the duality of the National Guard. Though needed for federal service, they still needed to be called to duty by their respective governors. Funding of the Guard, which had always been the responsibility of the Federal Government, was now made part of annual expenditures, and federal standards were set that all states had to meet in order to receive funding. Guard units were required to train with their active duty counterparts, for which they would be paid and would drill two days a month without pay. Many of the reforms and regulations imposed on the state militias remain in effect today.

The Guard had now chosen a path that would involve it increasingly with the Federal government, most notably Congress but also with the US Army through its agent the War Department. Martha Derthick, who wrote The National Guard in Politics, stated that this decision began a systematic trade-off by the National Guard of its autonomy for a greater role in US military affairs.[12]

Within the next few decades there would be further legislation that defined the role of the National Guard in federal service. The Militia Act of 1908 created the Division of Militia Affairs within the US Army General Staff. This office would one day be renamed the National Guard Bureau, the current Directorate of the National Guard and along with the National Guard Association would in the later half of the 20^th Century become an effective one-two combination in securing the political agenda of the National Guard. The 1908 Act also removed the nine-month restriction on federal service for Guardsmen and allowed for the use of Guard troops in locations outside of US borders.

The National Defense Acts of 1916, 1920, and 1933 established the duties, relationship, and responsibilities of the regular (active duty) army, the National Guard, as well as a new entity, Elihu Root’s brainchild, the US Army Reserve (USAR). The Defense Acts also represented a change in political alignments. The Guard now had a new adversary and a new patron as well.

Previous to 1910 the War Department had been the biggest supporter of the National Guard. In 1910 however General Leonard Wood became Army Chief of Staff and brought with him new ideas on the structure of the army. Wood and Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison proposed the creation of a “Continental” Army composed of 400,000 federal reservists, which would replace the role of the National Guard in augmenting the US Army. Under Wood and Lindley, the War Department changed from support of the National Guard to an opponent of federal dollars being used to support state militias. The Department went as far as recommending that the Federal government not use funds to pay reservists for performing drills. This change in support would lead to a change in alliances for the National Guard. Beginning with the passage of the Dick Act the National Guard strengthened its ties with Congress.

On 30 May 1908 the First Aero Company, Signal Corps, New York National Guard was formed in New York City. Most historians note this as the first Air National Guard unit even though it disbanded thirty years before the official recognition of the ANG. The First Aero consisted of 25 members but no airplanes until 1910 when, after raising $500, built their first plane which promptly crashed on take-off. A year later the Curtiss Aeroplane Company loaned the First Aero a plane, a Curtiss Jenny, and a pilot, Beckwith Havens. Havens later enlisted in the New York National Guard and became the National Guard’s first pilot, as a private.[13]

True to their heritage of militiamen providing their own arms, succeeding units would also provide their own airplanes. The California National Guard formed an Aero unit as a detachment of the 7^th Coast Artillery Company in 1911. The Missouri National Guard also formed a Signal Corps Aero unit that year and in 1916 New York became the first state with two air units when the 2^nd Aero Company in Buffalo mustered into service. However, none of the units was mobilized for World War I. Instead just the opposite happened: the units were disbanded and the Guardsmen encouraged to enlist with the regular army, which most did. The same pattern as both the Civil War and the Spanish-American War repeated itself.

Following WW I the War Department relented on its opposition to Guard aviation units. Of the 19 existing National Guard divisions divided amongst the states all were allowed to organize observation squadrons. The War Department even issued the units’ planes from the some 8,500 surplus aircraft in the army’s inventory following the war. The use of surplus military equipment would become a hallmark of active Guard relationship for the next several generations.[14]

Though the National Guard Association had been formed in the 1870’s with the express purpose of lobbying on behalf of the Guard; by the 1910’s it had not become the strong action group it was designed or destined to be. One of the main problems was political dissension within the Guard. New York, which had been an early force in National Guard reorganization and in the creation of the NGA, began losing its position of primacy to other regions. As factions within the Guard and the NGA began to grow, its political power had begun to wane. The heart of the conflict was the same as the one being debated in Congress and the war Department, the role of the Guard in US military strategy. New York and other eastern states favored the Guard being a stopgap measure for the regular army in time of war. They supposed that the Guard would be mobilized to hold the front lines until a volunteer force, such as that of the Mexican or Spanish War had been, and then the Guardsmen would return to their armories. The Midwest Guardsmen, however, saw the role as a much different one. Once called upon, the Guard would in essence become the army, staying on for the duration.

This factionalism continued to haunt the Guard through the political dealings during the various militia bills from 1903 on. The inability to mount a united front to oppose both the Root idea of a federal reserve or Wood’s push for a Continental (Reserve) Army opened the door for the creation of the US Army Reserve. Though the USAR did not meet the expectations of either Root or Wood, it did have the effect of unifying the NGA after its creation. Conflict between the Guard and the Army during World War I also led to a more united front for the Guard.

In 1916 The Division of Militia Affairs was changed to the Militia Bureau and moved from its powerless position in the General Staff to a separate department within the War Department. The Bureau would be responsible for administering federal rules and regulations in the Guard and would be headed by a Guard officer. This would placate those who favored autonomy from federal regulation. The new Militia Bureau would also prove to be a valuable partner for the National Guard Association in working Congress for the benefit of the National Guard. The Bureau would report facts and figures to Congress, who under the Constitution was responsible for appropriations for the military. Though the Bureau was under the umbrella of the War Department, which was a cabinet of the Executive Branch, it could always drop hints to prepared questions from Congress as to what might serve the Guard’s interest over that of regular army doctrine. The NGA, which had no ties to the War Department, could then pick up the ball and run a political lobbying campaign with no direct interference from the War Department. The only problem the NGA would face was support from within its own constituency. By 1939 the NGA had only $7,200 in the bank[15], and the collection of dues from members seemed to be haphazard at best. There was also no national office to direct efforts. The current leader of the NGA, Brigadier General Milton A. Reckford, The Adjutant General (TAG) for Maryland, operated a one-man shop from his office in Baltimore. This was to change during the 1940’s

By late 1939 many in government began believing that war with either Germany, Japan or both would soon be reality. Debate rose as to how best to increase the military manpower size to meet the threat. In 1940 Congress passed the Selective Service and Training Act. The act would serve several purposes. First, it would immediately increase the size of the army and navy by use of drafted conscripts. Second, it would provide for future increases in manning but means other than a call for volunteers. And finally, it would provide for an increase in trained men who could be channeled into a reserve force once their initial military training was complete. All of these factors threatened the Guard’s foundation as being the first line reserve of the army.

Reckford had threatened to derail the SSTA in Congress without some guarantee for the Guards role. In return for NGA support of SSTA a clause was inserted that protected the Guard’s position as the first line of reserves. This position was re-enforced when on 27 August 1940 Congress authorized the President for the first time to mobilize National Guard troops to meet the pending national emergency. The joint resolution allowed Roosevelt to call-up all National Guardsmen for one year to help train the expected influx of new conscripts. Though the call up was incremental and accurate numbers vary due to the mixing of regular army, Guardsmen, and conscripts, many accounts suggest that a large majority of the 119,500 Guardsmen under arms in 1939 served.[16]

In 1941 the year tour of duty was extended and by the conclusion of that year hostilities between the US and the Axis powers had begun. Guard troops had augmented many US army units but Guard units had also been called to serve intact, under their pre-war unit designations.

This is not to say that politics was set-aside during the war. Rather the battle over the role of the National Guard was just beginning to heat up. In 1943 Major General Ellard A. Walsh, Minnesota TAG was selected to head the NGA. Walsh was a dynamic leader who pulled few of his punches and who immediately declared his own war on the US Army. Walsh used the harshest of terms to describe regular army officers and accused them of “undiluted and undisguised hate of us”[17]. Walsh politically aligned the NGA with the American Legion and the Reserve Officers Association (The USAR’s version of the NGA) to support the NGA’s political agenda. He spent $11,000 of his own money to set up a Washington office which he would spend the majority of his time manning.[18]

At the same time Walsh was revving up the NGA, the War Department and the Army General Staff were formulating plans for the post-war military. Chief of Staff George E. Marshall favored a plan of Universal Military Training (UMT) which would require all able bodied males to take some military training and then be part of a national reserve. Marshall’s handpicked agent to construct such strategy was his former mentor Brigadier General John A. Palmer. In meetings between Palmer and other Army officer and Walsh, the latter made certain it was known that unless there were provision in which the regular army recognized the supremacy of the Guard as the reserve force the NGA would block UMT in Congress. This threat brought both Palmer and Marshall around to Walsh’s way of thinking. Walsh implied that the Guard might also accept certain provisions from the army, most notably the acceptance of regular officer to command Guard units. In 1944 the War Department created a six-man panel of officers to decide the future of the National Guard following the war. Equally divided between regular and Guard officers and with the grudging support of Marshall, Guard primacy was confirmed. USAR was placed in a subordinate role to the Guard.

This primacy was seriously challenged by a War Department study conducted in the late 1940’s. The Committee on Civilian Components, was appointed by the Secretary of Defense[19]

to make “a comprehensive, objective and impartial study” of the civilian components of the armed forces.

The Committee was directed to determine the “type and character of civilian components that should be maintained;…”[20]

Referred to as the Gray Report for its chairman Assistant Secretary of the Army, Gordon Gray, the report recommended that:

National Security Requires That All Services Each Have One Federal Reserve Force. This should be accomplished –

a) by establishing the reserve forces of the Army under the “Army Clause” of the Constitution;

b) by similarly establishing the reserve forces of the Air Force under appropriate legal authority;

c) by incorporating the National Guard and Organized Reserve Corps into the Army reserve force under the name of “The National Guard of the United States”;

d) by incorporating the Air National Guard and Air Reserve into the Air Force reserve force under the name of “United States Air Force Reserve.” [21]

The Gray Report was given to Secretary of Defense James Forrestal who concurred with the report. Lieutenant General Raymond S. McLain, US Army, and a member of the Commission later said, “neither he nor any other member of the board had anything against the (National) Guard except that it could not possibly be ready when needed.[22]

As could be expected Walsh hit the roof. The National Guardsmen, the official publication of the NGA blared on its cover “The Battle is On!” But the battle turned out to be both a rout and short-lived. The NGA quickly mustered a letter writing campaign to Congress and Walsh and other NGA members spend hours lobbying legislators. Congress quickly acted to quash the report. There would be only one further challenge in the future to the Guards position in military strategy and that was a half-hearted attempt almost 20 years in the future. The politics of the past 150 years had firmly established the Guard as a “dual” rolled, “dual” commanded entity in the United States.

IV. The Air National Guard

In April 1946 the 120^th Fighter Squadron was activated in Denver Colorado. It would be the first of 514 units, 84 of them flying units, to be federally recognized as an Air National Guard unit, separate from the US Army. The ANG was planned by the War Department to be the first step in an independent Air Force. Prior to 1947 the Army Air Force had simply been and extension of the Army, but the drive was underway to make it a separate military branch during World War II. That plan was completed and President Truman signed the National Defense Act of 1947 on 26 July 1947 creating the Department of the Air Force within the Department of Defense (DoD) and the United States Air Force (USAF). On paper the Air National Guard was to have been the front line reserve of the USAF with 72 fighter units and 12 light bomber.

But newly created people did not man the newly created USAF as well as the ANG. Except for a change in the color of their uniforms officers and enlisted had simply moved from the Army to the Air Force. Along with their expertise they also brought with them the same biases they’d had before.

The success that strategic bombing had had during World War II convinced many aviators that future wars would be fought and won strictly using air power. This air superiority became the doctrine of the new USAF. With the potential enemy now the Soviet Union and the potential size of the USSR in both land and population the USAF would need a huge force to win a war. The Air Force had projected as early as 1944 it would need 105 combat air groups and nearly a million men to outfit the USAF. The plan would require little support from the army or the navy and it would also not need reserve forces, especially state controlled National Guard units. This plan however met with resistance both within the War Department and with the National Guard. Marshall, who needed NGA support for universal military training, nixed the plan. In 1945 Marshall directed planners that an Air National Guard would exist.

Acrimony between the Air Guard and the Army Air Force and later with the USAF continued to build over the next few years. The Air Forces main contention was that they had no direct control over a reserve force that was to be their main backup. Under the existing chain of command the Chief of Staff for the Air Force had to communicate through the National Guard Bureau who in turn communicated with the State Adjutant Generals. Since the head of the NGB was designated as a “Director” and not the commander, the NGB had no authority to order commands to state units. This disconnect in the chain of command was made even worse when the Director of the NGB would issue guidance counter to Army or Air Force “wishes”. A case in point was in 1947 when Major General Kenneth F. Cramer, Director of the National Guard Bureau directed state ANG units not to obey any order from the USAF that had not been cleared by his office.[23]

Matters came to a head in 1948. The NGB was still a department within the Army, which meant that the ANG was also nominally under Army jurisdiction. In 1948 the NGB created two subordinate divisions, one for the Army National Guard and the other for the ANG. Using this opportunity to distance themselves from the roadblock of the failed Gray Report, Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington and Sectary of Defense Forrestal sent to Congress a bill that would authorize merger of the ANG and the Air Force Reserve (AFRes) into a single federal force. As with all attempts before the Guard turned to their protectors in Congress. The price of defeating the bill was NGB and NGA acceptance of the Army and Air Force Authorization Act of 1948, which stripped much of the authority that the Director of the NGB and the subordinate Army and Air divisions had over the state units. In the future this would allow state units to communicate directly with their active duty counterparts.

Universal Military Training, which the Guard had reluctantly supported as a quid pro quo, collapsed in 1950 when after passage several groups including the NGA opposed the draft of rules that would make UMT function. With the detonation of the Soviets first atomic bomb in 1949 public support for semi-trained reserves was replaced with support for a larger full time military. Once more the USAF tried to consolidate the ANG and AFRes but this time they could not even gain support from the Secretary of Defense.

By mid 1949 the last of the 514 ANG units was federally recognized, but lack of adequate funding kept manpower at levels below the 1945 plan of 58,000. Most pilots were veterans of World War II who had learned to fly during the war. The USAF conversely had 400,000 airmen but only 48 out of the desired 105 combat air groups. The ANG for the most part was integrated into the Air Defense Command (ADC), which was responsible for homeland defense. This garrison duty comprised the role of the ANG for the next two decades and was designed to relieve pressure on the USAF of protecting US borders from attack. But by 1950 lack of training, materials, and manpower meant that the ANG could fulfill little of this mission and USAF units were returned to ADC command.

On 25 June 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea beginning the Korean War. Unlike past wars and the problems encountered by its cousin the Army National Guard, the Air Guard was mobilized en masse for the Korean War. This was partly due to the poor condition of the USAF, which now relied heavily on reserve pilots to augment its own manning needs as well as units to replace USAF units who were then rotated to Korea. Sixty-six out of out ninety-two ANG flying squadrons were mobilized and over 45,000 or 80% of its total manpower were called to active duty during the conflict. Some of the combat squadrons were to comprise two fighter wings that saw actual combat in Korea. Other units were sent to Europe to bolster NATO in case the Soviets were to try a move against Western Europe. The majority of ANG units served in ADC while active duty units moved to the Far East.[24] Though the ANG considered Korea to be their first war, many of the same problems, which had bedeviled the National Guard in the past, still existed. The ANG had wanted its units to be activated and remain in tact above the squadron level but USAF planners had for the most part split up larger units to augment active duty wings where needed. In some cases individual pilots were transferred as replacements to active units.

The Air Guard also differed in structure from the USAF. Air Force wings were highly centralized with command and control tightly controlled by Wing Headquarters. Guard wings on the other hand were dispersed at municipal airfields throughout the country. The 132d Fighter Wings was headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa but the three flying units were located in Des Moines, Sioux City, Iowa and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with a fourth radar unit being located in Fort Dodge. This structure led to a much more de-centralized command structure with each unit having its own tactical and support units located with the flying squadron.[25] This difference led to problems when Guard units were activated and married up with active units. Korea exposed this problem and a quick reorganization, which incorporated USAF models but adapted to meet the de-centralized structure of the Air Guard, was completed.

Korea allowed the ANG to expand on several fronts. Manning, although authorized at 58,000, had only been funded to around 44,000 prior to the war. By the end of the war manning was projected to be 67,000 a 50% increase. Aircraft also saw some modernization. Prior to 1950 Air Guard units had been fitted with propeller-driven F-51 (the modernized and re-designated P-51) and P-47. Many of the F-51’s were stripped from ANG units and moved to the USAF for the Korean War. Some Guard pilots now began training on the new F-80 series of jets. Though it would be some time before the ANG would see a wholesale change to more modern equipment that trend began during the early 50’s in response to USAF need for adequate reserves.

Finally the biggest change brought by Korea was USAF attitude towards the ANG as a frontline reserve force. At the beginning of the Korean War the Air Force had, at best, been indifferent to the Air Guard. But the call up of ANG units early in the war and their role during the conflict had changed that attitude. Partly as a reflected in the Air Guard’s adoption of the more compatible Air Force structure of combat-wing organization; and partly out of recognition that the role of the Air Guard, for better or worse, was to be a necessary contributor to the mission of the Air Force. The Armed Forces Reserve Act of 1952 also referred to as the “Magna Charta” of reserve forces established an even firmer foundation for the Guard. National Guard officers were now involved in active duty planning. The Air Guard in return recognized that in order to be involved with the mission of the USAF they would need to be more closely tied to the USAF. The ANG leadership accepted increased USAF guidance and regulations as part of this involvement. In the future USAF and ANG relations would be much smoother course.

By 1960 Air National Guard personnel strength stood at 71,000. One of the greatest expansions had been in the growth of full-time ANG caretakers called technicians. These “Air Techs” had gone from 5,800 before Korea to 13,200 by 1960. Also the term “manning” could no longer be used, in 1957 the ANG inducted its first two female nurses, though there were still no enlist women in he Guard. Flying units had increase from 84 to 92 squadrons, and additional missions had been added. ANG units now flew reconnaissance missions, troop movement, medical, and heavy equipment lifts. Fighter units, still the primary mission of the ANG, now all flew jet aircraft. Some ANG units even flew the modern century series fighters like the F-100 though most were in 1950’s vintage 80 series.

The next major call on the ANG came in August 1961. As a means of testing a new American President, John Kennedy, the Soviets began building a wall to separate the portion of Berlin, Germany that they controlled from the portion controlled by the West. Ironically Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev demanded that Berlin become and open city no longer divided between the allied powers. Since Berlin lay entirely within the Soviet controlled portion of Germany (East Germany) it was widely accepted by the west that what Khrushchev wanted was control of the entire city.

Kennedy responded by placing the US military on alert, including mobilizing portions of the National Guard. In October 11 ANG flying units with 216 jet aircraft crossed the Atlantic and took up station in Europe. In the famous “Watch on the Rhine” mobilization 21,000 ANG members and 25 squadrons responded to the Berlin Crisis[26]. For the most part the mobilization went smoothly, though some USAF feathers were ruffled over the use of ANG in the initial response and deployment to theater. The ANG was still considered primarily a garrison force designed to protect US borders and free up the active-duty for strategic and overseas missions.

US and NATO reaction in conjunction with the completion of the Berlin Wall, which effectively stopped East German emigration, led to a defusing of the situation in Berlin. By August of 1962 all ANG units had returned home and been de-activated. But the repercussions of the mobilization were just beginning to be felt. For the first time National Guardsmen had been activated and sent overseas as part of political brinkmanship rather than to protect national sovereignty. Many Guardsmen had been placed on active duty for nearly a year and as a result enlistments and retention within both the ANG and the Army National Guard fell. To further compound the problem USAF had mobilized equipment as well as people and when Guardsmen were deactivated the Air Force made the decision to hold on to some of the equipment. This meant that many units that had been upgraded in equipment during the past decade returned to find the cupboard bare.

Problems within the Army National Guard however were much worse. Mobilization of the Army National Guard had gone poorly and coordination between the Army, the Army Reserve, and the ArNG was virtually non-existent. ArNG units had been undermanned but because of reporting loopholes this shortage of manpower was not channeled above the state level. When ArNG units were activated the shortage became obvious and the Department of Defense was forced to turn around and deactivate some units. In response to this Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara began certain sweeping reforms. First McNamara wanted to roll the Army Reserve into the National Guard. In this he chose just the opposite of past reforms, that of “federalizing” the Guard. His stated reason was that the states would still need the National Guard to meet state emergencies; the unstated reason was that by picking the Army Reserve for elimination he would avoid the inevitable conflict with the states and the National Guard Association. McNamara’s second reform was the elimination of several Guard divisions, which were under-manned and not assigned to critical duties. While the reforms in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve took the headlines, the Air Force also approved a plan to merge the Air Force Reserve into the Air National Guard.

The reforms McNamara envisioned did not come to reality. The main opponent this time was the Reserve Officers Association who had taken a page out of the NGA manual and had built a sizable coalition within Congress. In 1966 Congress passed the Appropriations Act of 1966, which mandated that Congress would set the manning levels for all services, ensuring that both the National Guard and Reserves would no longer need to fear their existence at the hands of active duty.

The Berlin Crisis was not the only early 60’s duty for the Air Guard. Only a month after the last ANG member was deactivated following Berlin, US intelligence discovered the Soviets placing ballistic missiles on Cuba. In response to the increased military activity many Air Guard bases in the south were turned over to the USAF and several southern ANG were put on 24 hour alert. But unlike Berlin no ANG units were activated and the Cuban Missile Crisis ended a month later.

Unlike the quick build up for both the Berlin and Cuban Crisis the Vietnam War was a gradual military adventure. National Guard involvement would be used in foreign combat as well as quelling domestic unrest. The use of the National Guard for the latter was almost strictly the duty of the Army National Guard and will not be dealt with in this paper, however the use of the National Guard in Vietnam in some form or another saw action by both the ArNG and the ANG and changed the concept of reserve forces in US military strategy for the long term.

During the late 1940’s and throughout the 1950’s US military strategy had become increasingly based on the use of nuclear weapons. Many strategists thought the next war would be even more devastating than World War II and would involve the exchange of nuclear warheads either via missiles or bombers. As a result the US had neglected conventional means and had reduced manning. By the time of the Eisenhower Administration, the US military was completely involved in planning for a “massive” response to Soviet aggression. This policy seemed well found following the Chinese involvement in Korea. This strategy however did not allow for actions should the aggressor decide to engage in pinprick actions such as Berlin. The Kennedy Administration was now faced with developing a new strategy that would allow the use of conventional means to face down the Soviets when diplomatic means failed and nuclear weapons were to great an escalation. It called the new policy “Flexible Response”.

Though used in both Berlin and Cuba the first true implementation of Flexible Response occurred in Vietnam. There a US backed government in the South was locked in guerilla warfare with a communist backed government in the North. The US had been sending advisors to the South Vietnamese Army since 1961. In 1964 an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin had provided the Johnson Administration with a pretext for expanding the war in Vietnam. Congress gave Johnson the authority to:

“…take any necessary measures to repel further attacks and to provide military assistance to any South(east) Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) member.”[27]

The US military would now begin send combat forces to help the South Vietnamese Army defeat both North Vietnam Regulars and guerillas.

As the US gradually increase combat forces in Vietnam it became clear that the active-duty would be unable to handle both the widening role within Southeast Asia as well as maintain its presence around the world. Johnson was faced with a decision how to increase the size of US military forces, either by mobilizing the reserves or activating selective service draft laws. McNamara, who had remained as Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff advocated that the President call up 200,000 reservists. But Johnson instead decided to rely on conscription instead. In the History of the Militia and the National Guard, John Mahon cites three reasons for this decision:

1. To conceal from the American people the high level of military commitment that the nation was making in a distant land.

2. To avoid sending belligerent vibrations to the North Vietnamese, the Soviets, and the Chinese. Major General James Cantwell, by this time president of the NGA, agreed with this idea in these words: “When America mobilizes its reserves, a shock wave goes around the nation and around the world.”

3. Secretary McNamara gave expression to the third reason: to preserve the reserve component as untapped power “available to meet further contingencies for fulfilling our treaty commitments.” In those words he voiced the administrations fear that Vietnam was no more than a diversion to distract attention from a greater effort elsewhere.[28]

Some authors have conjectured that it was this lack of mobilizing the reserves or “citizen-soldiers” that would later lead to a lack of US public support for the war[29]. Whether that was the case or not the reasons behind LBJ’s decisions seem sound when looked at in the context of the time. The Berlin and Cuban missile Crises had been less than five years earlier and prevalent US military thought felt the Soviets were still more interested in Western Europe than Southeast Asia. For whatever reason there was to be no widespread call up of reservist, but all branches including the ANG would see action in Vietnam.

The Air Guard did not have to wait long. Shortly after Johnson’s decision not to call up reservist ANG units were flying support missions to the combat zone in January 1966. This however was not done as part of a call up but rather was classified as “training missions” means the planes and crews were in the same category they would be in if they were performing drills back at their home base. By the end of June 687 roundtrip missions had been flown by the ANG.[30] The Air Guard would continue to just fly support missions for the next two years, all under the guise of regular “training” flights. Through 1967 no ANG units participated in combat, but that would change the following year.

Two events in 1968 changed the character of the war and US involvement in Asia. First was the Tet Offensive launched by the North backed Viet Cong guerillas throughout most of the South. The second was the seizure of the USS Pueblo on open seas by North Korea. The Pueblo event in itself should have led to military retaliation and the mobilization of the reserves, but under the conditions at the time the US chose not to over extend its military forces and instead turned to diplomacy. In January 1968 following Tet, Johnson ordered 11 Air National Guard units into federal service, including the 174^th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS) located at Sioux City, Iowa. Four of these units deployed to Vietnam and began flying combat sorties using F-100 fighters. The 174^th was deployed to Phu Cat AB in South Vietnam. The last of the four, the 136^th TFS out of New York was deactivated in June of 1969. [31]

A further 10 ANG units, most flying century series aircraft were also mobilized in either January or May of 1968. Two of these, the 166^th TFS and the 127^th TFS deployed to Kusan Korea. The other eight replaced USAF units in the states who were then deployed overseas. All of these units had been deactivated by June 1969. In all 10,511 Air Guardsmen were activated between January 1968 and June 1969. In addition to those who were mobilized many Air Guardsmen volunteered for duty with the USAF. Guard pilots served with the USAF in Europe, the US and in the Pacific. The ANG took on the mission of air refueling in Europe and operated it either as training missions or short tours. This proved to be so successful that the USAF allowed the ANG to keep the mission for ten years.

A further change in the offing for the National Guard was the role of women. Nurses were still the only category that could be filled by women by the mid-1960’s in the Guard even though the active duty were allowing them in greater roles. Congressional criticism of this caused a knee-jerk reaction, which would be duplicated in future years. In 1968 legislation was passed that allowed females to fill other duties within the National Guard, including enlisted positions. The ANG quickly embraced the idea and by 1969 the first three non-nurse females graduated from basic training.

But Guard membership numbers were to swell for other reasons. Johnson’s decision not mobilize the National Guard meant that Guardsmen were unlikely to see military service in South East Asia. This of course meant ironically that by joining the military a person could avoid military service. In 1969 28,000 more college-trained men joined the reserves than volunteered for active duty. Many future political leaders would opt for this choice, including Vice President Quayle who served with the Indiana National Guard and President George W. Bush who was a pilot with the Texas ANG. 10 members of the Dallas Cowboys also joined the Texas National Guard to which Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy retorted, “We have a system which allows professional athletes to join National Guard units which neither train nor Guard.”[32] Kennedy later disavowed the remark under pressure from the NGA. Guard leaders made the point that the NGA had urged Johnson to activate the Guard as part of the war.

The war and its implications raised manning from 82% of authorized levels in 1960 (85,940 authorized, 70,820 assigned) to 99.9% in 1969 even though authorized numbers remained fairly constant. The number of units had also grown from 546 in 1960 to 858 by the end of the decade.[33]

The Vietnam War ended for the US in 1974 but there were no Guard troops on active duty in support of the war after 1969.

V. The Total Force

The repercussions in the US military following Vietnam would be felt for decades and would drastically change the role of both the active duty and the reserves. The first major move was the end of the draft. With the wind down of US involvement in Vietnam as part of the Nixon Administration planners in the Department of Defense and others began to advocate an all-volunteer army. In January of 1973 Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird ordered an end to induction of drafted conscripts. Though the Selective Service Act of 1967 would remain on the books it was no longer to be utilized. Interestingly enough one of the opponents to allowing the draft to lapse was the NGA. Its stated reason for supporting the draft was the feeling that relying solely on volunteers would not provide sufficient numbers to support the active military. The unstated reason of course was that many individuals chose Guard membership as a way to avoid active duty service. Enlistments in the Guard had reached an all-time high of 100,000 in 1969 to 15,000 by 1971 and Air Guard manning was under authorized numbers by 3,000.[34]

In order to encourage enlistments in the Guard, recruiting efforts were increased and in the later 1970’s bonuses for enlistment and reenlistment were begun. Later this was modified to include a choice between a cash bonus or education assistance at a higher amount. The Guard also began mining the large portion of officers and enlisted who had served in the active duty but were being forced out by the reductions in a peacetime military. Finally the Guard also began to recruit outside of its normal base of white males. The use of Guardsmen to quell urban disturbances in the 1960’s had given many black Americans a negative view of the Guard. In 1969 the Army Guard was 1.18% black, by 1977 it was 15.2% and total minority numbers represented 23.4% of the total. The Air Guard continued to actively pursue the enlistment of women. Several rules were relaxed during the 70’s including allowing the enlistment of females who had not previously served in the active duty. Married females were allowed to enlist in 1974 and by 1977 the ANG had nearly 10,000 women members. In 1978 the ANG rated its first female pilot, 2^nd Lieutenant Marilyn Koon, of the 114^th TFG, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a unit of the 132d TFW headquartered in Des Moines. Koon, however was required to move to another unit for under existing law she was barred from flying combat aircraft.[35]

On 12 August 1970 Secretary of Defense Laird introduced a new military concept labeled the “Total Force Policy”. Total Force was in response to several of the challenges that would face the US military in the future. First was the expansion of Soviet forces around the world. Some US analyst expected the failure of the US to “save” Vietnam would embolden the Soviets and their agents to spread communism even further, primarily in Europe. Second, the US military was going in just the opposite direction. US history had dictated that the public would show little support for maintaining a large standing military in times of peace. Army personnel numbers would drop by 25% in the two years following the end of Vietnam, while the USAF would fall by almost a third. Third was the growing political detente with the Soviets. Regardless of how the military saw it President Nixon and the Department of State sought to find agreements with the USSR in a number of issues and a build up of military forces would undercut that effort. The final factor influencing the new policy was the time needed to respond to perceived threats. The good old days of mobilizing reserves and waiting six-weeks while they were brought up to speed had become obsolete. The US military was required to respond both quickly and with massive force to meet any challenges in the future.

The only way to do this was to include the use of reserve forces in the military planning of the future, and since the National Guard was still considered the first line of reserve that meant their role in relation to the gaining services would need to be revised, it was “no longer a strategic reserve but a component of the force in being.”[36] This would mean that the Air Guard would be changed from primarily a garrison force, designed primarily to defend US borders to an expeditionary role needed to deploy overseas.

Though Laird expounded the Total Force in 1970 it was not accepted as official US Department of Defense policy until 1973 when then Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger. The Total Force concept fit much better with Air Guard structure than it did on the army side of the house. As a result were the US Army was required to take a greater role in administering the ArNG the changes for the ANG incorporating into the policy was mostly paperwork. One advantage was that the ANG more closely mirrored the active duty requirement of a high school diploma for recruits. The ANG was averaging greater than 85% high school graduates to the ArNG’s 44.4%. Also following the conflicts of the late 1940’s and Korea the USAF and the ANG had worked reasonably well together, a result of the ANG’s decision to accept greater Air Force direction in return for a greater role.

The USAF immediately put Total Force into practice but assigning both the ANG and the Air Force Reserve missions in Latin America. For the majority of the mission each branch would serve an alternating six months. Within the six months different units would complete their annual two-week training period. This worked especially well in Panama where the ANG took over defense of the Panama Canal. Air Guard fighter units would rotate in and out of Canal Zone on a fixed schedule that fulfilled training requirements with out their being activated.

As with all policy the necessary laws needed to be enacted. In 1976 Congress passed Title 10 of the US Code, Chapter 673 (b), which authorized the President to call up reserve military members without a declared war or national emergency with the following conditions:

2. The call up could not exceed 50,000 reservists. This was later amended to 200,000.

To this point the individual state governors still had the nominal ability to refuse to allow their state militias to serve overseas, remnants of the old 1792 Militia Act still remained, but only for a time.

Not everyone agreed with the Total Force Concept. A 1974 Brookings Institute staff paper, U.S. Reserve Forces: The Problem of the Weekend Warrior, authored by Martin Binkin, a former employee of the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense, Systems Analysis, and now a senior fellow at Brookings, raised the age old argument: why two branches of reserves? Binkin and the Brookings Institute recommend that once again the National Guard and the Federal Reserves be combined into a single entity. On the Army side the reserve would be rolled into the Army National Guard and on the Air Force side the ANG would be rolled into the Air Force Reserve. The paper quoted a powerful member of the Senate Armed Service Committee, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, himself a retired general in the AFRes who said, “...the state has no use for an Air Guard.”[37] The report however also noted the competency of the ANG. “The Air Guard, on the other hand (as opposed to the ArNG), has the most specific mission statement of all Reserves. Its units appear in three contingencies simultaneously.”[38] The jist of the report was economic; Binkin estimated that the restructure would eliminate 60,000 active duty positions and 310,000 in the reserves, at an annual savings of $1.4 billion in 1974 dollars. Part of the saving would come because of lower numbers in the reserve the need for bonuses could be eliminated.[39] Laird and the respective services, though they might have agreed with the recommendations in private, failed to publicly support the report.

Total Force Planning continued through the 1970’s and for the most part active duty and reserve branches worked through the various problems. The NGA even took to lobbying on behalf of certain issues for the active duty. One of these was the USAF request for the B-1 bomber to replace the aging B-52s. They were successful in that Congress approved initial funding for Research and Development (R&D) but President Carter later canceled the program. On other funding issues however could raise old biases again. In 1975 President Ford’s budget proposal to Congress cut military spending by half a billion dollars, with one third of that coming from Guard appropriations. The NGA swung into action and the final measure, which passed Congress cut less than $1,000,000 from the Guards budget.[40]

In December of 1980 following the election of Ronald Reagan as President, Lieutenant General LaVern Weber, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, created the VISTA 1999 Task Force to look at the role the National Guard would play by the year 1999. One of the promises Reagan had used in his successful campaign to defeat of Jimmy Carter had been based on “rebuilding” America’s military. There was a general feeling in the nation that the cut backs and neglect of the armed forces following Vietnam had been to great, and following Soviet moves both in Poland and Afghanistan, that the cold war might be heating up. Of course the way to reverse cut backs is to spend more and the early 1980’s looked like time to increase expenditures. Hopes for a 40-wing Air Force along with a 600-ship navy were common.

The VISTA 1999 panel was comprised of twenty field grade and one company grade officers, of the National Guard. The lone junior officer was Captain J. Dennis Stevens from Iowa. In March of 1982 the VISTA 1999 panel completed their study and issued a report that contained ten “Findings or Conclusions” and eight “Recommendations”. Many of these were truly visionary in projecting the future. The panel suggested that intra-national conflict would cause many opportunities for intervention by “outsiders” (read: communists) and “makes low order conflict in these regions much more likely to occur.” Also the conclusion that “The United States must develop and maintain a capability to insure the uninterrupted flow of resources (read: oil) considered essential to America’s vital interests and concomitantly enhance the national interests of other friendly nations.”[41]

2. Increases in the force structure of the Total Air Force should be placed in the Air National Guard.

Until existing units have their full complement of aircraft, no new units should be created to accommodate the introduction of new weapon systems...[42]

This recommendation was seemingly aimed that the USAF plans of creating new active units to handle both the KC-10 refueler and the C-17 heavy-lift aircraft. The Guard wanted either to be a player in the new airframes or garnish some of the USAF existing KC-135 and C-141 planes. The ANG had been assigned airlift capabilities by the USAF during Vietnam and had flown these using C-97 and C-124. When the C-124 was phased out of USAF inventory the ANG airlift mission was greatly curtailed. VISTA argued that while the planes might be gone the crews still existed within the ANG and all that would be needed was the aircraft.

3. The National Guard should become the proponent of a new combined Force (Multi Service combined arms) approach.

2) The second tactical fighter is the most lethal air superiority fighter possible...[43]

The first recommendation 3.b.1, was arguing against the use of the A-10 Thunderbolt II which was unceremoniously nicknamed the “Warthog”. Though an efficient aircraft for what it was designed to do, take on battlefield armor, not a very glamorous aircraft and a mission that USAF had passed on the ANG. The VISTA 1999 panel argued that the A-10 was overly expensive, and overly slow and that a new airframe could be acquired at one-third to one-quarter the price. A modified version of the LTV Navy A-7D “Corsair II” seems to be the plane of choice and several units were already equipped with these beginning in the mid to late 1970’s. Both of Iowa’s Fighter Squadrons, the 124^th TFS in Des Moines and the 174^th TFS in Sioux City were flying A-7s.

The second recommendation 3.b.2 was just the opposite of the A-10 point. The hot new tactical fighter in the USAF inventory was the F-16 Falcon. ANG units, some still flying 1950 “80” and “Century” series aircraft saw the F-16 as a way for the ANG to step into the modern age and be a full-fledged member of the USAF. This recommendation also mentioned comparing the F-16 with a modified F-5G/F-20A Tigershark. During the early 1980’s Northrup Grumman had modified the F5 and had come up with the F-20 designed mainly for sale overseas. The F-20 compared favorable with the F-16 in most aspects and was a cheaper airframe, which encouraged the Guard to consider it as an alternative to replace its existing fighters. However, the USAF resisted the ANG purchase of F-20’s and the lack of overseas customers caused Northrup to close down the project by the mid-1980s.

The final Recommendation in VISTA 1999 was not particular to the ANG but rather the National Guard as whole. Point 8 stated that:

Each state should establish (some already have) a State Militia force, over and above the units of the organized militia, to meet State requirements in the event the National Guard of that state is Federalized in conjunction with mobilization and deployment.[44]

In the text of the report VISTA recommended that while these units would be strictly state-sponsored, and used only when the existing National Guard had been mobilized, it would be the Federal governments responsibility to provide the units with excess of obsolete military equipment and property. The existing National Guard units in the state would be responsible for training it.

Changing Realities: The fervor of early 1980’s spending gave way to economic realities by the middle of the decade. Deficit spending, a usual budgetary phenomenon for the US, grew from $40.7 billion in 1979 to over $221 billion five years later. Though the percentage of deficit spending-to-revenues remained fairly constant, 11.6% in 1979 and 10.1% in 1985, public opinion focused on the amount and the increase to the Federal debt, which had doubled to $2 trillion in six years.[45]

In response to public outcry Congress came to focus more attention on reducing government spending. In 1985 Congress passed the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, U.S. Budget Deficit Reduction Measure. Gramm-Rudman provided for automatic spending cuts to take effect if Congress failed to reach established targets. A large portion (49% in 1995) of the federal budget is Mandatory spending, meaning the government is required to fund it by law. Deficit reduction therefore falls on the head of Discretionary spending (35.9% in 1995), those programs that the federal government can choose to or not to fund. Of all of these, defense expenditures take up the largest portion (51%) of discretionary funding. This of course meant that defense would take the largest cuts.

The Air National Guard responded to the tighter defense dollar by reordering its priorities. In testimony before the 1986 Defense Sub-Committee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Major General Alexander P. McDonald, Adjutant General for North Dakota spoke more on the modification of current ANG aircraft rather than new acquisitions. McDonald expounded an ANG proposal to upgrade the current fleet of 300+ A-7s into an airframe nicknamed the “Strikefighter” and also to modify and upgrade the existing F-4 Phantom fleet.[46] Terms like “new” and “modern” had given way to “airframe longevity” and “budget constraints”. The F-4 in particular had been suggested as a phase-out by VISTA 1999 but there was no talk of that by 1986, only the hope that modifications and upgrades would keep the planes capable of fighting in a wartime scenario.

The testimony was part of a larger Congressional study on whether the Guard and Reserve could assume more active duty missions allowing for further cuts in the Army and USAF. This meant that even though cuts were inevitable the Guard might be able to make some hay out of the process. McDonald related that the ANG had already assumed a sizable portion of USAF missions including most of the continental air defense. According to his testimony by the end of the decade there would be only three USAF squadrons defending American air space, while the ANG would have eleven, some of them still flying F-106 “Delta Darts” which had first seen service in 1956. The USAF could still meet its 40-wing goal but only with major help from the ANG and AFRes.

Not everyone agree with this idea. A GAO report published at the same time for the Committee reported that a study it conducted felt very little of the current USAF mission could be assumed by the ANG. In studying United State Air Forces, Europe (USAFE) the GAO conclude that the maximum number of active USAFE numbers could only be reduced by 15,000 out of a total of 92,000 if Guard and Reserve were utilized. The main problem would be that a traditional reserve force only spends on average two weeks a year on duty. The GAO had conducted a survey of North Dakota ANG members who were on two-week annual training at USAFE Headquarters, Ramstein AFB, Germany. Only about of third of the 400 who responded stated that they would be “certain” or “very likely” to volunteer to for a six-week deployment to Ramstein. This dropped to 18% for married, traditional Guardsmen.[47]

But the use of National Guardsmen to replace Active duty missions had been taken place for sometime, particularly in the Army National Guard. President Reagan had been supportive of right-wing rebels in the country of Nicaragua since coming to office. Reagan sought to bolster the rebel’s cause and intimidate the Nicaragua government by showing the flag and possibly training the guerillas in next-door Honduras. In 1986 Army National Guardsmen and the Honduran army held a joint exercise that came within two miles of the Honduras-Nicaragua border. At the same time units of the Honduras army were training members of the Nicaragua rebels. Many critics of US policy made the accusation that the US was training the rebels by proxy. The Defense Department also began using ArNG and ANG to construct or improve airstrips, barracks, and other military sites under the standard of assisting a friendly nation.

Some US governors also began to protest the use of their National Guardsmen to support this covert operation. Governor Bruce Babbitt of Arizona refused to allow National Guardsmen from his state to train in Honduras because it was "...part and parcel of the Reagan administration effort to involve us in war in Central America".[48]

That fall Congress passed the “Sonny” Montgomery Amendment to the National Defense Act, which prevented Governors from refusing to let their National Guardsmen from participating in overseas training except when needed for state emergencies. Montgomery, a Congressman from Mississippi had long been a support of the military in general and the National Guard in particular. Congress at this point was still supporting Reagan’s efforts in Latin America. The Montgomery Amendment was challenged the next year when Governor Michael Dukakis tried to stop Massachusetts National Guardsmen from deploying to Panama. Dukakis filed suit claiming that the Constitution specifically guaranteed the states right to raise and train a militia. Dukakis got a negative ruling by the First Circuit Court of Appeals but a higher federal court overturned that. It appeared the states had retained primacy over the use of state militia.

At nearly the same time as the Dukakis/ Massachusetts suit Governor Rudy Perpich of Minnesota also filed suit attempt to stop National Guardsmen in his state from being sent to Honduras. “Neither the administration nor Congress has the authority to circumvent the powers granted to the states by the Constitution” according to the Perpich administration. Perpich v DoD wound through the various courts until it reach the US Supreme Court, which lumped both Perpich and the Dukakis cases together. In 1990 The Supreme Court overturned both the Perpich and Dukakis rulings and held that the Montgomery Amendment was constitutional. The court held that under the Constitution Congress was responsible for both the army and the militia, but that the army clause super-ceded the militia clause when the two conflicted. In the opinion handed done the Court traced the history of the militia from the Constitution through the 1792 Militia Act, the Dick Act, both Wars and many of the Defense Acts and came to the conclusion that members of the militia who were called to federal service cease being state militia and became members of the US Army. In other words Guardsmen could have two hats they just couldn’t wear them at the same time. As for the case in point:

...the Governor (Perpich) does not, however, challenge the authority of Congress to create a dual enlistment program...(This means) that members of the National Guard of Minnesota who are ordered into federal service with the National Guard of the United States (sic) lose their status of the state militia during the period of active duty...”[49]

The “National Guard of the United States” as referred to above was what the Court interpreted the National Defense Acts of 1916, amended in 1933. Which had set the parameters by which the National Guard could be called into federal service. According to the Court when individuals enlisted in the National Guard of their state they also enlisted in the National Guard of the United States. Ellard Walsh must have turned over in his grave. State objections to Federal missions had been ended. “Nation Building” as it came to be called increased over the next decade. Though primarily involving ArNG units, many ANG Civil Engineering and Medical squadrons would also deploy to Central on South America.

The ANG had also been involved in two military actions in conjunction with the USAF. The first of these was Operation Urgent Fury, the invasion of the island of Grenada. The stated purpose of the operation was to protect American students at the medical school in Grenada. Of course the opportunity to overthrow a socialist government to eject Cuban military advisors from the country probably also played a part in the decision. ANG units provided logistical support as well as “Electronic Combat” missions over the island.

The second, more involved action was Operation Just Cause, which used US military force to capture Panamanian strongman General Manual Noriega. Again the justification was to restore democracy to Panama but an underlying reason was to end Panama’s participation in smuggling of illegal drugs into the states. The area commander requested that the 193d Special Operations Group of the Pennsylvania ANG be activated to perform “psychological warfare capability.” The DoD rejected the request based on the perception an involuntary call-up might cause. The 193d was asked for voluntary help and responded quickly with both planes and crews to the theater.[50] Since ANG units were already stationed at the Canal Zone it was easy to incorporate them into the operation, though there was little call for close air ground support ANG A-7s did fly 34 missions. ANG C-130 units also stationed at the Canal Zone proved much more useful transporting men and material intra-theater and other units provided logistical help with heavy airlift to Panama.

On 2 August 1990 The Iraqi army attacked and occupied its neighbor Kuwait. Following the invasion the US began Operation Desert Shield, which was designed from stopping the Iraqis from moving on into Saudi Arabia. Within two days of the invasion the local theater commander “requested” assistance from the 117^th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, of the Alabama ANG. The majority of the USAF reconnaissance capabilities at the time were located in the ANG and the 117^th in particular had a unique camera capability not found anywhere else in the USAF. The 117^th along with the Alabama Governor and state Guard leadership supported the request and a call for volunteers yield well in excess of the 115 needed. Eventually the 117^th deployed six RF-4C reconnaissance aircraft. Other Guard units also began immediate support particularly in the area of refueling active duty aircraft deployed to Southwest Asia.

On 22 August 1990, President Bush issued an involuntary call up of reserves as authorized by 10 USC 673(b). This was the first use of the law passed in 1976 and the first involuntary call up of reserves since 1968. The President also ordered that a “stop-loss” be implemented. This prevented any member from separating from the military if he or she was deemed to be in a critical role. On 23 August, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney informed the separate service secretaries that they could begin calling reservists up to a specified number, for the USAF that number was set at 14,500. The Cheney order specified that the call up should not include reserve combat forces. By the end of the war 231,000 reservists had been mobilized and 105,000 had served in theater.[51] Of these 12,404 were ANG members who were mobilized and 5,240 of them served in Southwest Asia. And for the first time in ANG history the majority of those were not from flying but rather support units. [52]

When air operations began as part of Desert Storm in January 1991, ANG fighter units were part of the opening salvo. RF-4C aircraft had already flown nearly 700 missions prior to hostilities and, even though the F-4 was a badly out-dated aircraft, flew another 350 in combat. ANG F-16 flew 3,645 sorties and dropped 3,500 tons of ordinance without the loss of a single aircraft. EC-130 electronic aircraft flew 2,000 missions, some them broadcasting surrender appeals and instructions in Arabic and Assyrian. ANG tankers dispensed more than 125,000 tons of fuel to more than 18,000 aircraft. ANG airlifted 55,000 people and 115,000 tons of cargo.[53]

However well the Air Guard performed during Desert Shield/Desert Storm it still brought out its detractors. As it had following Vietnam the Brookings Institute published a study titled Military Readiness: Concepts, Choices, Consequences, which suggested the heavy use of reserve forces had limited US strategy to an offensive war. Under 10 USC 673 (b) the President was restricted to a 90-day call up with allowances to extend that for an additional 90 days. This was the reason Cheney had not wanted combat units mobilized. The Defense Department wanted to wait until the last moment to use reserve combat forces. This unfortunately meant there would be little time for the units to prepare themselves prior to departure, something that was considered necessary when using reserves.

Once reserve units were in place the clock on the 90+90 began ticking. By early fall the DoD had begun work on a rotation plan to use for reservists coming off active duty by law. Much as Harold had encountered a millennium earlier the militaries hand was forced by the reliance on reserves. In early November Congress increased 10 USC 673 (b) to 90 days plus an additional 270 bringing the total up to 360 days. Immediately the Bush administration announced the call up of 188,000 additional reserves, combat units included, and announced that all reserves would deployed to Southwest Asia would remain until the end of the conflict. This meant that the US had public announced that the conflict would be over by November of 1991. A war of containment or encirclement would not be effective in a year’s time. This should not be construed as the only factor that led to the 15 January 1991 ultimatum and subsequent attack. The need to hold a coalition of both Arab and non-Arab countries together, the approach of Islamic holidays, the inevitable strain placed on any military all combined to in the strategy of the war.

VI. New Roles, New Missions

In May 1989 the Warsaw pact nation of Hungary opened its border with Austria for passage in either direction. Thousands of East Europeans, especially East Germans flocked to Hungary as a way to emigrate to the West. The USSR, racked by its own internal problems, failed to intervene as it had in 1956. This began the first major step in the collapse of Communist rule in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. On 19 November the Berlin Wall began to come down and the two Germany’s began a reunification process. The final step in the collapse occurs on 23 August when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as Secretary General the Soviet Communist Party and dissolved the Central Committee.

These events ended a Cold War that had lasted for 45 years. The immediate effect was what many referred to as the “peace dividend”. Public opinion favored a reduction in standing US military forces with the money saved going towards domestic programs or reducing the deficit. Reductions in real spending did take place. A study conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies entitled Trends in US Military Forces and Defense Spending calculated that US military spending, using constant FY 2000 dollars, dropped from $436 billion annually in 1985 to $359 billion in 1991 and to $283 billion by 1998.[54] And that US Defense spending as a part of national GDP had fallen from 6.2% in 1986 to 3.8% ten years later.

This however was only one side of the argument as other groups pushed for deeper cuts. A study by The Project for Defense Alternatives published its own study that noted while real spending was down the US portion of world defense spending had increased. In 1985 the US spent 65% of the total that perceived enemies of the US spent. With the collapse of the Soviet pact the spending by these enemies collapsed as well so that by 2001 the US was spending 200% what are perceived enemies were.[55] A Quaker organization, Friends Committee on National Legislation pointed out that the “US spent more than the next seven leading military powers, combined: $283 billion versus $265 billion, with five of those powers being US Allies...and...In 1999, the U.S. spent 2.6 times more on its military than the combined military expenditures of the next nine largest potential adversaries (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Cuba): $283 billion versus $109 billion.”[56]

In the cases of both the CSIS as well as the two opposing views it should be noted that all three had agendas they were pushing and found defense spending statistics easily manipulated to make their point. Defense spending is not necessarily the purpose of this paper but I use it to preface the discussion on the role of the National Guard. With the sudden collapse of the threat that the US military had been preparing meet for five decades, and with the trend in funding moving downward US military planners were faced with the elimination of programs and or units. It was under these conditions that the Air National Guard found its necessity threatened and in need of new missions. The Pentagon planners especially looked at reducing the Guard and Reserves as a way to preserve active duty funding. Active-duty personnel and active-duty oriented civilians of course populate the Pentagon and the Department of Defense and so their focus was logical. Additionally troops in the field also questioned the need for a two-component reserve in the face of budget cuts. An editorial in the Air Force Magazine by a retired USAF Senior Master Sergeant summed up the position of many:

In light of the current defense budget cutbacks and downsizing of military units, has anybody thought of eliminating the Air National Guard and placing (the) ANG’s old units in the Air Force Reserve?

...In these days of tight defense dollars, an Air Guard unit makes no more sense than a Navy or Marine Guard unit...[57]

A term that has recently been used has been more often by DoD planners and others is “Low-intensity Conflict” or “LIC”. A LIC refers to a military engagement that does not reach the same level of military conflict or involvement of a Vietnam War or Desert Storm but exceeds levels of normal diplomacy. Though limited use of military power has been discussed since Kennedy’s “Flexible Response” doctrine of the early 1960’s the use of the US military in LIC’s has become even more involved. VISTA 1999 spoke of the Guard’s need to become adaptable to support operations in “low order conflicts...much more likely than central war.”[58] Early ANG involvement in LIC’s, such as Grenada and Panama, primarily centered on logistics, the movement of troops and materials, with combat aircraft also in support roles. When Desert Storm thrust the ANG into a lead position the Air Guard’s response earned it recognition from both the active duty and the public.

In LIC operations, US military doctrine has primarily involved the use of air power. LIC’s of the 1990’s have been primarily centered in South Eastern Europe, particularly over the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. The two main conflicts arising out of the break-up occurred in the former province of Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo. In both instances LIC’s arose over Serbian or Serbian-organized attacks on local Muslim populations. In Operation Joint Endeavor, the US mission in support of NATO actions in Bosnia, ANG units flew Air Refueling missions as well as airlift missions. After the LIC had ended ANG staffed rear-area bases where US and NATO personnel would transition into and out of the theater of peacekeeping operations.

In the Kosovo conflict US and NATO forces bombed Serbian military and government controlled assets as a way of forcing Serbian politicians into accepting peace-keeping forces. ANG deployed more than 91 aircraft and more than 2,100 personnel to augment NATO air campaign. Missions included air to air refueling, special operations, humanitarian supplies transport and OA-10 fighter support. Again following the end of the bombing campaign ANG units rotated in and out of Macedonia in support of peacekeeping forces.

As a result of the increase in operations tempo the USAF began experiencing serious problems. Temporary Duties Assignments (TDY) came more rapidly and involved longer stays in overseas locations had the adverse effect of loss of personnel who would not accept such lengthy stays away from home and families. Further problems arose as aircraft and equipment exceeded usage over maintenance and failures came more often. The Air Force had gotten leaner than Cold War days but was increasingly in demand to project US political policy. To relieve this burden the USAF had been increasing relying on the ANG to perform missions. By using the ANG for these missions it allowed over-stretched active duty units to stand-down for maintenance and to allow USAF members more time at home. Beginning in the mid-1990’s ANG fighter units began taking over enforcement missions of the No-Fly Zones in Iraq. Many units, including the 132d Fighter Wing in Des Moines, dropped live ordnance on opposing military targets for the first time in their existence. ANG were now being scheduled to perform overseas combat missions on a regular basis.

The problem was that ANG units were still devised as primarily a garrison force to be activated in time of national emergency not necessarily for the use of political power projection. 70% of Air Guard personnel were traditional, meaning they performed training one weekend a month and two week “summer camp” a year. By lessening their operation tempo the USAF was increasing the tempo of the ANG. USAF and ANG planners felt the way to solve this problem or at least relieve it to some extent was to project ANG missions well into the future. This planning became the USAF policy of Air Expeditionary Force (AEF). Under AEF, active duty, ANG, and AFRes units would be combined into one of 10 equally equipped Expeditionary units which would deploy to overseas locations. Two AEF’s would deploy at the same time for a duration of 90 days with all 10 AEF’s completed their rotations in a 15-month cycle. Deployments were structured so the ANG and AFRes units could plan for their deployments years in advance and develop them around a two-week annual training requirement. ANG and AFRes members who wished could also volunteer to serve on the AEF’s for longer periods even up to the 90 days if they so chose, which allowed greater flexibility be identifying those personnel who wanted longer missions to relieve active personnel who did not.

The first AEF’s began on 1 October 2001 when AEF 1 and 2 deployed to Kuwait and Turkey to provide combat air patrols over Iraq.

If ever two different philosophies needed each other it was those who smuggled drugs and those who tried to stop them. Criminals who have seen the price of their commodity rise as the supply has been limited by law enforcement efforts have made billions. At the same time billions have been spent to hire, train, equip, and maintain those who have sought to halt illegal drugs. In 1971 President Nixon coined the term “War on Drugs” as an attempt to stop the importation, manufacture, and use of illicit drugs. Since 1977, the National Guard has been supporting federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in their counter-drug efforts while also evolving aggressive drug-demand reduction efforts in recent years. But their involvement was limited to utilization during training exercises. Army Guard personnel who do rural sweeps while ANG members would practice photo reconnaissance missions by doing aerial observations for telltale signs of illegal activity, such as looking for Marijuana fields.

As the drug war moved into the 1980’s the with little signs of success the focus became greater on drug lords outside American borders, particularly in Central and South America. With a foreign target as the enemy, the use of American military to help was a common suggestion. Many military planners however resisted this idea; the US military was trained for a conflict that differed from that of a policeman. To further that argument the issue of Posse Comitatus was raised.

Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act (18 USC 1385) following post-Civil War Reconstruction. It forbade the use of federal military forces to enforce civilian laws, though enacted in 1878 the fear of the government using a standing army to control the citizenship went back to the days of the American Revolution. The act was modified in 1981 specifically in response to the war on drugs, to allow military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies with the use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, and surveillance while generally prohibiting direct participation of DoD personnel in law enforcement. But Posse Comitatus only referred to federal troops, not those of the state. This made the Guard a much more useable force in the drug war.

In the 1986 Defense Drug Interdiction Act of 1986, money was appropriated by Congress to the DoD in the war effort. The act mentions involvement by both the Secretary of the Air Force and the Coast Guard but there was no direct mention of the National Guard. In 1988 Public Law 100-463 allocated $300 million to the Defense Department with $40 million directly earmarked for the National Guard. The amount continued to rise with each new appropriations bill until it reached a high water mark of $180 million for the National Guard in 1997. In 1998 President Bill Clinton’s budget request for funding for the National Guard was reduced though Congress reacting to NGA and home state Guard lobbying increased the amount by an additional $20 million.

In 1989, Congress enacted legislation expanding the Guard's role with the National Defense Authorization Act. Besides helping with local drug enforcement and demand-reduction activities, the National Guard also supported agencies like the Drug Enforcement Agency, FBI, Customs Service and Border Patrol. Air National Guard Civil Engineering units, such as the 132d CES from Des Moines, were deployed for annual training to Border Patrol stations to work on construction projects. Because of concern that having military uniformed personnel working on such projects most units were tasked to work in civilian clothing.[59] A House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Criminal Justice, chaired by Representative Charles Schumer (D-NY), held a hearing on October 6, 1994 on the future of the use of the National Guard in anti- drug activities. "The National Guard is a powerful, ready-made fighting force.” Schumer said in his opening statement. "Redefining its role in the post Cold War era presents exciting possibilities in the war against crime." Testimony focused on the National Guard's activities in fighting the drug war -- cash and asset confiscation, drug seizures, and destruction of marijuana plants. [60] The National Guard created counter-drug task forces in every state that worked not only with law enforcement but drug education programs as well. By the 1997 the Guard had over 4,000 troops on duty and was involved in 1,300 counter drug operations, both numbers more than the Justice Department’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). With an eye towards Posse Comitatus, all operations under taken by the Guard for drug missions have been coordinated under Title 32 of the US Code rather than Title 10. Title 10 governs the Guard at the federal level while 32 USC deals with the National Guard under state jurisdiction. In a report prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, eighteen different major programs were identified as missions for the National Guard.[61]

ANG participation in the drug war took different approaches as well. The concept of “Nation Building” as articulated in the 1970’s and 80’s became increasingly popular in helping friendly countries fight drug smuggling internally. ANG engineering units began assisting in construction projects to improve the facilities of host nation militaries and road construction. The New Mexico Air National Guard worked joint training missions with the Chilean Air Force and several units conducted joint training operations with Peru, who was fighting leftist guerillas that were involved in the drug trade.

Other missions have presented themselves and the Guard as well as Congress has willingly jumped at the opportunity. The active duty services, constrained by federal law prohibiting law enforcement, and the desire to stay out of domestic problems have willingly passed on the missions. One of these missions has been the threat of domestic terror. In 1995 following the Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton created the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection or Marsh Commission to study possible terrorist threats to internal assets. The following year during the Olympic Games in Atlanta thousands of Guard troops volunteered to augment local security. These were the early steps in moving the National Guard into the lead of a new mission which remarkably mirrored its old mission, that of defending the homeland.

Following the Marsh Report President Clinton authorized a much more extensive study into all aspects of domestic terrorism. That committee, jointly chaired by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman later became known as Commission on National Security/21^st Century (USCNS/21). The commission issued three separate reports it labeled as a Road-Map For National Security. The reports suggested the creation of a “National Homeland Security Agency” (NHSA) to coordinate the activities of all anti-terrorism groups. NHSA would be structured much like the existing Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) with a small headquarters in Washington D.C. but the bulk of the agency located at regional offices around the country. The head of the NHSA would be a two-star National Guard general who would have the support of agencies such as the Customs Service, the Border Patrol, and the Coast Guard. An important part of making the National Guard the focus of the NHSA was a provision that would allow the active-duty to re-enforce the National Guard when emergencies warranted it. This of course is a complete reversal of past primary and reserve roles.

Finally the biggest step recommended by the USCNS/21 as far as the Air and Army National Guard was recommendation number 6.

The Secretary of Defense, at the President’s direction, should make homeland security a primary mission of the National Guard, and the Guard should be organized, properly trained, and adequately equipped to undertake that mission.[62]

At present, the Army National Guard is primarily organized and equipped to conduct sustained combat overseas. In this the Guard fulfills a strategic reserve role, augmenting the active military during overseas contingencies. At the same time, the Guard carries out many state-level missions for disaster and humanitarian relief, as well as consequence management. For these, it relies upon the discipline, equipment, and leadership of its combat forces. The National Guard should redistribute resources currently allocated predominantly to preparing for conventional wars overseas to provide greater support to civil authorities in preparing for and responding to disasters, especially emergencies involving weapons of mass destruction.

This Commission recommends that the National Guard be directed to fulfill its historic and Constitutional mission of homeland security. (italics theirs) It should provide a mobilization base with strong local ties and support. It is already “forward deployed” to achieve this mission and should:

● Participate in and initiate, where necessary, state, local, and regional planning for responding to a WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) incident;

● Maintain up-to-date inventories of military resources and equipment available in the area on short notice;

● Develop an overseas capability for international humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

In this way, the National Guard will become a critical asset for homeland security. [63]

The WMD in the preceding points refers to Weapons of Mass Destruction teams that were the brainchild of Assistant Adjutant General for the State of Iowa, Brigadier General Roger Schultz. General Schultz had been detailed to the Pentagon in 1996 to lead work on Guard involvement with the possible use by terrorist of items such as nerve gas, radioactive bombs, truck bombs, or even nuclear devices. Schultz and his team devised a concept know as Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection or RAID teams. The plan would have RAID teams would respond to incidents of weapons of mass destruction use within the US and serve as support units to the on-scene commander as designated by the states. The initial plan created ten, 22-person teams across the country, with each of the ten responsible for an area that might cover several states. Plans called for all 50 states to have RAID teams in place by 1 January 2000 in case they were needed for Y2K disasters. The plan called for units that would use both Air and Army National Guardsmen on RAID teams in a joint mission, which is often called to as “Purple Suits” in reference to Air Force blue and Army green uniforms.

The National Guard Association, now called NGAUS (NGA of the United States) embraced the idea. DoD funding called for nearly $50 million annually just for RAID teams and the needed support structure, and the National Guard would be the lead military force in the plan, much as Hart-Rudman would later recommend.

Terrorism efforts by the National Guard were not without its critics. The Government Accounting Office (GAO) in particular criticized the charter and planning of RAID teams. In a 1999 report entitled COMBATING TERRORISM: Use of National Guard Teams is Unclear, the GAO noted that different agencies viewed the role of the RAID teams in different ways.[65] The DoD viewed the teams, as assets that could be mobilized as part of the Federal Response Plan as run by FEMA. FEMA however, did not include the use of RAID teams in the Response Plan. Local officials in larger metropolitan areas, felt that RAID teams were to be used in areas that did not have “robust” hazardous material capabilities. And of course each state tended to writes the duties and responsibilities of their own team. Reaction time to the use of WMD was also at issue.[66]

The RAID concept called for the closest team to an incident to be deployed to the scene no later than 6 hours from the time alerted, airlift to be provided in most cases by the Air National Guard, though the AFRes or USAF airlift could also be used. But the GAO, and others, felt that teams that far away would be of little use in an emergency situation. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientist a publication by disarmament-advocating academics stated, "There is no way that these teams, even if deployed in six hours, would be there in time to make any difference. This is a very poor answer and a waste of taxpayers' money."[67]

The GAO suggested, as a better option to the use of RAID teams might be the already existing Civil Engineering Squadrons and fire fighting units within the Air National Guard.[68] The GAO noted that there were already 89 CES units and 78 fire fighter units already in existence and trained in many of the duties required by RAID teams. Also the ANG had ten Explosive Ordnance Disposal units with plans to increase that number to 44. These EOD teams would be trained to handle WMD as well. The GAO report stated, “According to Air Guard officials, these skilled units could be of great use to local incident commanders in a WMD attack on civilian targets...these units to be available to the states, not only in a WMD event, but also in a major HAZMAT (Hazardous Materials) emergency.

VII. Conclusion:

It is clear from reading the history of the Air National Guard and its predecessors that politics was the most important part of its creation, growth and continued existence. While that statement may sound downbeat it is important to remember the oft-quoted Clausewitz who said that war is simply diplomacy by other means. To develop this thread means that militaries are simply an extension of politics, used for political ends. If the National Guard in general and the Air National Guard in particular has been successful in maintaining its

VIII. Policy Recommendations:

1. The Air National Guard, while maintaining its role as a reserve unit of the USAF, should be merged with the Army National Guard. This breaks with the old concept of merging the two branches of the USAF reserves, the ANG and the Air Force Reserve, but still addresses the concern over two separate National Guards with duplicated headquarters functions. There has been much discussion since the fall of the Soviet threat as to whether the US military still needs four separately commanded branches of the military. The National Guard could be a leader in this concept of unified forces tailoring themselves to meet the mission rather than tailoring the mission to meet the forces.

2. The USAF, ANG, and Air Force Reserve each become the primary service in a certain aspect of the Total Force with the other two becoming the reserves. In the case of the ANG that primary mission being the defense of the United States and/or North America and/or the Western Hemisphere.

A. The USAF would become the primary military source of air power projection in all overseas missions with the USAFRes being the primary reserve force.

B. The USAFRes would become the primary force in state-side maintenance of USAF assets and would assume the lead for state-side training and maintenance. Members of the USAF would move between the USAF and USAFRes depending on the duty assigned. Air National Guard assets would be the primary reserve in this area since they already conduct some training for the USAF and they would have many physical locations in the continental US.

3. The Air National Guard primary mission should return to its original concept as a force designed to protect National sovereignty and should shoulder less of the international load in US diplomatic/military. By assuming the lead position in National Defense the National Guard more closely resembles the force that the original framers of the Constitution envisioned. These missions would include:

Flying Units	Air National Guard	Air Force Reserve	Combined Percent of Total Air Force
Aircraft¹
Weather Reconnaissance	0	10	100%
Aerial Spraying	0	4	100%
Fighter Interceptor Force	60	0	100%
Tactical Airlift	218	104	64%
Air Rescue/Recovery	25	29	57%
Aerial Refueling/Strategic Tankers	204	64	55%
Tactical Air Support	18	33	38%
Tactical Fighters	477	72	30%
Strategic Airlift	28	68	27%
Special Operations	5	12	17%
Support Aircraft	6	0	4.5%
Bombers	18	8	21%
Polar Ski Aircraft	10	0	100%
Formal Training Unit Fighters	107	0	100%
Aircrews²
Aeromedical Evacuation	1,293	1,705	83%
Strategic Airlift/(Associate)	0	2,075	44%
Tanker/Cargo/(Associate)	0	474	52%
Aeromedical Airlift/(Associate)	0	36	44%
AWACS	0	144	8%
Non-Flying Units
Space	1	4	5%
Engineering Installation	19	0	68%
Aerial Port	27	42	82%
Combat Communications	45	3	77%
Aircraft Control & Warning	2	0	100%
Tactical Control	19	0	68%
Air Traffic Control	10	0	62%
Combat Logistics Support Squadrons	0	6	62%
Civil Engineering³	97	43	46%
Weather	33	0	46%
Strategic Airlift Maintenance/(Associate)	0	7	48%
Security Forces	85	35	35%
Medical⁴	89	40	22%
Communications Flights	88	35	22%
Intelligence⁵	4	2	4%

Notes:
1. Primary Authorized Aircraft count.
2. Authorized personnel.
3. Includes RED HORSE (Combat Engineer) Units.
4. Excludes aeromedical and evacuation personnel.
5. Percentages are for units and do not include IMA Participation.
Sources: The Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve.
Data as of September 30, 2000.

IX. BIBLIOGRAPHY

— Anti-Defamation League, Militia History and Law FAQ, 1995. Internet, available from http://www.militia-watchdog.org/faq3.htm, 3.65

— Betts, Richard K., Military Readiness: Concepts, Choices, Consequences. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institute, 1995.

— Binkin, Martin, U.S. Reserve Forces: The Problem of the Weekend Warrior, A Staff Paper. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institute, 1974.

— Broder, David S., Hands Off National Guard, Governors Say, The Washington Post, 27 August 1986.

— Collins, Edward M. ed., Karl von Clausewitz: War, Politics, and Power; Selections from On War and I Believe and Profess. Chicago: Regency, 1962.

— Cooper, Jerry, The Rise of the National Guard: The Evolution of the American Militia. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.

— Cordesman, Anthony H., Trends in US Military Forces and Defense Spending: Peace Dividend or Underfunding? Washington D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1999.

— Derthick, Martha, “The Militia Lobby in the Missile Age” in Changing Patterns of Military Politics, ed. Samuel P. Huntington. NY: Crowell-Collier Co, 1962.

— —The National Guard in Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965.

— Dupuy, R. Ernest, The National Guard: A Compact History. NY: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1971.

— Friends Committee on National Legislation, Military Spending Trends And Perspectives, March 2001. Internet, available from http://www.fcnl.org/issues/mil/sup/military_spending_trends.htm

— Evans, Gary R., Red Ink: The Budget, Deficit, and Debt of the US Government. San Diego: Academic Press, 1997.

— Gladman, Daniel L. LTC, USAF, Total Force Policy and the Fighter Force. Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1995

— Gross, Charles J., Prelude to the Total Force: The Air National Guard 1943-1969. Washington D.C: Office of Air Force History, 1985.

— — Forging The Air National Guard, 1994. Internet, available from http://www.ang.af.mil/ngb/paih/forging.htm

— —Air National Guard Heritage, Internet, available from http://www.ang.af.mil/ngb/paih/heritage.htm#AFTER%20THE%20STORM

— Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Counterdrug Operations, Washington. 1998. 1 vol. (Joint Pub 3-07.4), Doc. call no.: M-U 40592 no. 3-07.4 (1998 Feb 17).

— Levick, Ben, The Anglo-Saxon Fyrd 878 - 1066A.D., 1995. Internet, available from http://www.regia.org/fyrd2.htm

— Lightfoot, James E., Mobilizing the Air National Guard for the Persian Gulf War: Lessons and a New Direction. Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1995.

— National Drug Strategy Network, House Holds Hearing on National Guard Involvement in 'War on Drugs', September 1994. Internet, available from http://www.ndsn.org/SEPOCT94/HOUSE.html

— Paret, Peter, Yorck and the Era of Prussian Reform. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966.

— Project on Defense Alternatives, The Paradoxes of post-Cold War US Defense Policy: An Agenda for the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review, 5 February 2001. Internet, available from http://www.comw.org/pda/0102bmemo18.html#2

— Roberts, Michael, Gustavus Adolphus and the Rise of Sweden. London: English University Press, 1973.

— US Commission for National Security/21^st Century, Phase III Report: Road Map for National Security. Washington D.C.: 2001

— U. S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Appropriations, Expanded role for the Reserves and National Guard: Hearing Before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate, ninety-ninth Congress, second session: special hearing, Army Reserve, North Dakota Air National Guard. 1986.

— U.S. Department of Defense. Committee on Civilian Components. Reserve Forces for National Security, Report to the Secretary of Defense, Washington D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1948.

— VISTA Task Force, National Guard Bureau. A Long-Range Look at the Future of the Army and Air National Guard. 1982

— Wittman, Sandra M., Chronology of US-Vietnamese Relations, 2001. Internet, available from http://servercc.oakton.edu/~wittman/chronol.htm

[1] http://www.regia.org/Fyrd2.htm

[2] Roberts, Michael, Gustavus Adolphus and the Rise of Sweden, (London: English University Press, 1973) 106

[3] Paret, Peter, Yorck and the Era of Prussian Reform, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 135

[4] Clausewitz, Karl von, War, Politics, and Power; Selections from On War and I Believe and Profess, ed. Edward M. Collins, (Chicago: Regency, 1962) 32

[5] Cooper, Jerry, The Rise of the National Guard: The Evolution of the American Militia, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 2

[6] US Constitution Article I, Section 8, Clause 15, 16

[7] US Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 1

[8] Lightfoot, James E., Mobilizing the Air National Guard for the Persian Gulf War: Lessons and a New Direction, (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1995), 23

[9] Derthick, Martha, Changing Patterns of Military Politics, ed. Samuel P. Huntington. (NY: Crowell-Collier Co, 1962.) 199

[10] Cooper, p. 28

[11] The 46 states and District of Columbia

[12] Derthick, Martha, Changing Patterns of Military Politics, ed. Samuel P. Huntington (NY: Crowell-Collier, 1962) 201

[13] http://www.ang.af.mil/ngb/paih/forging.htm

[14] Ibid

[15] Derthick, 207

[16] Dupuy, R. Ernest, The National Guard: A Compact History, (NY: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1971) 116

[17] Derthick, 208

[18] Mahon, John K., History of the National Guard, (NY: Macmillan, 1983) 195

[19] The National Defense Act of 1947 had combined the War and Navy Departments into a single Department of Defense. The office of Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of War now became the Secretary of Defense.

[20] Gray, Gordon, Report by the Committee on Civilian Components, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1948

[21] Gray

[22] Mahon, 201

[23] Mahon, 203

[24] Gross, Charles J., Prelude to the Total Force: The Air National Guard 1943-1969I, (Washington D.C: Office of Air Force History, 1985) 59

[25] Gross, 66

[26] Mahon, 228

[27] http://servercc.oakton.edu/~wittman/chronol.htm (August 7, 1964)

[28] Mahon, 242

[29] Gladman, Daniel L. LTC, USAF, Total Force Policy and the Fighter Force, (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1995), 14

[30] Mahon, 242

[31] Gross, 191

[32] Mahon, 242

[33] Gross, 193-194

[34] Mahon, 249

[35] Mahon 252

[36] Mahon, 253

[37] Binkin, Martin, U.S. Reserve Forces: The Problem of the Weekend Warrior, A Staff Paper, (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institute, 1974), 37

[38] Binkin, 22

[39] Binkin, 63

[40] Mahon, 257

[41] VISTA 1999: A Long-Range Look at the Future of the Army and Air National Guard, (March 1982), i

[42] VISTA, iv

[43] VISTA, iv

[44] VISTA, vi

[45] Evans, Gary R., Red Ink: The Budget, Deficit, and Debt of the US Government, (San Diego: Academic Press, 1997), 33

[46] United States Congress, Expanded role for the Reserves and National Guard: Hearing Before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate, ninety-ninth Congress, second session: special hearing, Army Reserve, North Dakota Air National Guard, (1986) 99

[47] Ibid, 110

[48] Broder, David S., "Hands Off National Guard, Governors Say", The Washington Post, 27 August 1986, p 5.

[49] http://www.militia-watchdog.org/faq3.htm, 3.65

[50] Lightfoot, 23

[51] Betts, Richard K., Military Readiness: Concepts, Choices, Consequences, (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institute, 1995) 189

[52] http://www.ang.af.mil/ngb/paih/heritage.htm#AFTER%20THE%20STORM

[53] ibid

[54] Cordesman, Anthony H., Trends in US Military Forces and Defense Spending: Peace Dividend or Underfunding? (Washington D.C.: CSIS, 1999) p 2 (graph)

[55] http://www.comw.org/pda/0102bmemo18.html#2

[56] http://www.fcnl.org/issues/mil/sup/military_spending_trends.htm

[57] Editorial by SMS Noel A. Sivertson, USAF (ret.) in Air Force Magazine, March 10, 1995

[58] VISTA 1999, i

[59] Personal experience in working with the 132d CES

[60] http://www.ndsn.org/SEPOCT94/HOUSE.html

[61] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Counterdrug Operations, Washington. 1998. 1 vol. (Joint Pub 3-07.4), Doc. call no.: M-U 40592 no. 3-07.4 (1998 Feb 17)

[62] US Commission for National Security/21^st Century, Phase III Report: Road Map for National Security. (Washington D.C.: 2001) p.47

[63] Ibid p.47-48

[64] US Commission for National Security/21^st Century, Phase III Report: Road Map for National Security. (Washington D.C.: 2001) p.24

[65] US Congress. General Accounting Office, Use of National Guard Response Teams is Unclear: Report to Congressional Requesters, (Washington D.C. The Office, 1999)

[66] Ibid. 6-7

[67] Low Probability, High Consequence by Diego Lluma Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Nov/Dec 1999 http://www.thebulletin.org/terrorism.html.

[68] GAO Report.

Master of Public Policy

Introduction

I. History of the militia, its founding and formulation

II. History of the militia in America pre 20^th Century

a) by establishing the reserve forces of the Army under the “Army Clause” of the Constitution;

b) by similarly establishing the reserve forces of the Air Force under appropriate legal authority;

c) by incorporating the National Guard and Organized Reserve Corps into the Army reserve force under the name of “The National Guard of the United States”;

d) by incorporating the Air National Guard and Air Reserve into the Air Force reserve force under the name of “United States Air Force Reserve.” [21]

IV. The Air National Guard

V. The Total Force

VI. New Roles, New Missions

VII. Conclusion:

VIII. Policy Recommendations:

IX. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Master of Public Policy

Introduction

I. History of the militia, its founding and formulation

II. History of the militia in America pre 20th Century

a) by establishing the reserve forces of the Army under the “Army Clause” of the Constitution;

b) by similarly establishing the reserve forces of the Air Force under appropriate legal authority;

c) by incorporating the National Guard and Organized Reserve Corps into the Army reserve force under the name of “The National Guard of the United States”;

d) by incorporating the Air National Guard and Air Reserve into the Air Force reserve force under the name of “United States Air Force Reserve.” [21]

IV. The Air National Guard

V. The Total Force

VI. New Roles, New Missions

VII. Conclusion:

VIII. Policy Recommendations:

IX. BIBLIOGRAPHY

II. History of the militia in America pre 20^th Century