More than two-thirds of Army Guard units not ready for war

[Purveyor]

WASHINGTON – More than two-thirds of the Army National Guard's 34 brigades are not combat ready, mostly because of equipment shortages that will cost up to $21 billion to correct, the top National Guard general said Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum spoke to a group defense reporters after Army officials, analysts and members of Congress disclosed that two-thirds of the active Army's brigades are not ready for war.


The budget won't allow the military to complete the personnel training and equipment repairs and replacement that must be done when units return home after deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan, they say.

“I am further behind or in an even more dire situation than the active Army, but we both have the same symptoms, I just have a higher fever,” Blum said.

---end of excerpt---

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20060801-1431-combatreadiness.html

[MadMaddie]

1. Hey Purveyor not a surprise....

our reserve units equipment gets left behind in Iraq and Afghanastan and this administration refuses to replace the equipment so the troops can train....it's a vicious cycle...dumbya and the cabal don't get it.....so it will get worse....

Welcome to DU!!:hi:

[FloridaPat]

2. Another lie I think. * took $50 billion worth of Reserve units equipment

to Irag. So one would think that to replace it the cost would be $50 billion.

[Herkdrvr]

3. Context

I was in the Army National Guard from 1992 to 1999. In those 7 years, I was with an engineer battalion and an aviation battalion. Both units suffered from equipment shortages, except back then no one really cared about it. Our engineer battalion had vehicles that were literally rusting away, 10 ton trucks that wouldn't run, front-end loaders with cracked windshields and dry-rotted tires, and so on and so forth.

The aviation company I was with had 12 UH-1V helicopters, of which only 3-4 were flyable due to parts shortages. Our fuel trucks broke down with alarming regularity. Our sister company was equipped with UH-60A helicopters, and rarely would you see a four-ship formation takeoff without at least one returning for maintenance. It was pretty aweful there too, and no one had the money to support the equipment.

I'm not saying that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with this report...but honestly, in proper context it's not much different from the way it was beforehand either.

I currently fly C-130H airlift airplanes for the active USAF, and it's amazing to hear people when I tell them about our aircraft, how we constantly have maintenance issues and how our aircraft are breaking and have flight restrictions on some of them. They always first comment "well, that's what happens with all this Iraq mess". It's not Iraq really that caused it...it's the fact that our NEWEST airplanes are 1974 models...some of the airplanes I fly are 1961 C-130E models. Flying a 45 year old airplane is bound to be full of issues.

Same goes for the Guard equipment...much of that stuff is old and doesn't work, and therefore isn't counted as "serviceable". While the active Army rode around in brand-new M925 tractor trailers made by Freightliner, we had 1960's-era AM General 10 ton trucks that would break down every 20-30 miles. And that was back in 1995. During the "good" years.

[Hekate]

4. Which does beg the question: where is the money going?

It's a rhetorical question; you don't really have to answer.

The sheer corruption is staggering. The only ones getting anything out of it are the Masters of War.

Hekate

[Herkdrvr]

5. I know where it's going

It's the 50" flat screen TVs in the Finance Office that are used soley to announce "Welcome To Finance". It's the fleet of well-equipped SUVs that Airman Basics use to drive around in at the deployed air base while combat Herk crews are riding in well-worn vans with poor air conditioning. It's the nearly $300 million/per airplane F-22 fighter program currently being bought, when the most important air assets in theater are helicopters and tactical airlifters like the C-130.

The way the DoD (and most government agencies) spends money is archaic and wasteful. Some units don't have enough money. Others get too much. I know of non-flying support units that literally have new computers, flat screen TVs, and other high-end gadgets literally sitting in boxes gathering dust, while the flying squadrons can barely afford to pay crews per diem on missions.

[Hekate]

6. gaaah. Oh by the way, welcome to DU & thanks for your service.

:hi:
Hekate

[lebkuchen]

7. Here's the Stripes version of the same story

The Army National Guard’s readiness is in “an even more dire situation than the active Army,” due to equipment being worn out or destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan and never replaced, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said Tuesday.

Speaking in Washington to defense reporters, Blum joined a growing list of Army officials and members of Congress who are voicing concerns about the Army’s ballooning equipment replacement costs and its effect on the service’s ability to go to war.

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, told the House Armed Services Committee on June 27 that the Army needs another $17 billion added to its fiscal 2007 budget to pay for resetting and replacing equipment consumed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and $13 billion a year for two or three years after the wars end to bring the force up to par.

Asked by the top Democrat on the committee, Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, if he was “comfortable with the readiness level for the nondeployed units that are in the continental United States,” Schoomaker replied, “no.”

<cut>

When reporters asked Blum how the two-thirds figure compares with the number of National Guard units that are unprepared to go to war, Blum replied, “It’s worse for me.”

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=39060

[Az_lefty]

8. 2/3's of Active and National Guard units are non-deployable...

this story is worse than the headline implies. I'm in the Guard and we just went through pulling soldiers and equipment from three trans Co's to augment one which is deploying to Iraq. The three remaining are now utterly non-deployable.