Pennsylvania Guardians - Summer 2010

Divisions unite for National Guard conference (Continued from page 3)
Guard Bureau has already established
the east and west, 22-man DART planning
teams, composed of Army Guard and Air
Guard personnel.
“If an event happens east of the
Mississippi, the primary division is the 28th,”
said Col. Hank Amato, Army National
Guard chief of operations division. “Our
intent is to have a primary division east
and west of the Mississippi.”
“When it’s needed, we have access
sooner because we know who is available
sooner,” said Brig. Gen. Daniel Nelan,
special assistant to the Department of
Defense, Army National Guard.
Officials said DART would impact
the planning of state level emergency
management agency officials in a
positive way.
Nelan told the gathering of general
officers that it’s important to remember
“what DART is and what it is not.”
“It isn’t something that’s going to come
into your state uninvited,” Nelan said.
Maj. Gen. Wayne Pierson, commander
of the Kansas National Guard, concurred,
saying a state’s AG is the one “to pull the
trigger” on DART.
“The DART does not come in to your
state and take over,” he said. “The DART
comes in to say, ‘OK, adjutant general,
you asked for help, we’re available.’”
“If you have a robust state with robust
assets, that’s fine; this is just another asset,”
Marchi said.
DART was a major focus of the
conference, but the meeting also provided
a chance to synchronize the availability of
divisional assets across the Army National
Guard. Officials discussed the need to
fill warrant officer slots in military
intelligence units and aviation units but
said much progress has been made in
updating equipment.
“Although modernization of specific
equipment, such as truck and helicopter
4 / GUARDIANS / Summer 2010
Leaders of the eight divisions in the National Guard met at Fort Indiantown Gap Jan. 30 to talk about
issues common to the division commands and the way ahead for the future.
fleets, remains a long-term challenge, for
the past two fiscal years the Army National
Guard has received $10 billion of new
equipment,” said Col. Michael Fortune,
Guard Bureau’s chief of the material
programs division.
Col. Mark Strong, chief of force
management division at the National
Guard Bureau, presented an overview of
the new division headquarters structure
that was approved by the Headquarters
Department of the Army Jan. 11, 2010.
“The Army did a complete relook of
every single organization type to gain
efficiencies and pay down some personnel
bills in the process,” said Strong.
The new Division 9.1 design headquarters
will convert from a three-unit
organization with three separate unit
identifier codes, including the division
tactical action center and special troops
battalion, to one with only one UIC, the
division headquarters. Although there
will be 50 percent fewer tactical wheeled
vehicles, the new division headquarters
Leaders of the U.S. Army’s
eight National Guard divisions gathered
at Fort Indiantown Gap Jan. 30
to discuss the way ahead for the Citizen-Soldier force
as it balances the dual missions of
state emergency preparedness and
committing troops to the global contingency operations.
will maintain its full mobility and will
modernize much of its communications
equipment, Strong said. The new division
HQ will also lose about 100 personnel
spaces but will gain 31 new military
occupational specialties.
“So there may be a need for about
128 of the 730 total division Soldiers to
reclassify or retrain for new MOSs,”
Strong said.
Additional division capabilities will
include knowledge management, red team,
electronic warfare, information operations,
civil affairs, personnel recovery and
others. The 35th ID has already been
converted, while conversion of the 34th
and 40th Divisions will take effect in
FY 10. Conversion of the 28th, 38th and
42nd Divisions takes effect in FY 11, and
the 29th and 36th Division’s conversions
will occur in FY 12, said Strong.
Deployments of division headquarters
were also discussed at the council
meeting. Nelan presented the current
deployment plan or “patch chart” to the
commanders, describing the requirements
for division headquarters to deploy to
support Operation Iraqi Freedom,
Operation New Dawn, Operation Enduring
Freedom and Kosovo Force support.
Unit deployment selections are determined
based on a variety of factors
including their “dwell time” or time they
have been at home station between
deployments, their personnel availability
based on current unit status reporting,
and training and equipment levels.
Division headquarters will not normally
be deployable, said Nelan, if their dwell