Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

Bruce I. Gudmundsson • 191might be obligated to be in two different units (and thus places) at the same time, isaddressed by a simple set of protocols. Reserve unit training takes precedence overNational Guard training, and, while a reservist is undergoing periods of active dutyfor training, he is not subject to activation. In time of peace, National Guard activationtakes precedence over reserve mobilization. Thus, in the (somewhat unusual) eventthat both a person’s National Guard unit and his reserve unit are mobilized for thesame crisis, that person reports to his National Guard unit. However, in the event ofwar, Reserve unit mobilization takes precedence over National Guard activation.The civilian occupations of many members of the National Guard correspondto their military service. Guardsmen who are police officers, firefighters and paramedics,for example, enhance the ability of their respective National Guard units tocooperate with police departments, fire departments and rescue crews. Guardsmenwho work for utility companies, departments of transportation, port authorities andother organizations involved in the maintenance of infrastructure also possess skillsof great value to a unit responding to a disaster of one sort or another. Regardless oftheir civilian occupation, most guardsmen possess intimate knowledge of the culture,geography and peculiarities of the community in which they serve. Thus, in the eventthat several different military units find themselves operating in a particular part ofthe country, the local National Guard unit will be able to provide guides, escorts andliaison teams.While the definitive mission of the National Guard is immediate response toshort-term crises in their home communities, the peculiar capabilities of NationalGuard units are useful in other situations. If, for example, the collapse of publicorder of the sort that took place in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s, the organizationof choice for “domestic nation building” is the National Guard. Similarly, concertedcampaigns against organized crime on a large scale (of the sort that currently afflictsparts of the southwestern United States) require the intervention of civil-militarytask forces that usually include National Guard units. For such long-term missions,National Guard regiments form, deploy and maintain “standing companies.” Composedof members of their parent regiments who serve on a rotating basis, standingcompanies are custom-tailored organizations that are capable of remaining on activeduty for indefinite periods of time.As a standing company of a National Guard regiment enjoys close links to its homecommunity, the deployment of such a unit to a distant community in distress has theeffect of forging a relationship between the two localities. This, in turn, creates theopportunity for the creation of a larger partnership, one in which civic organizationsin the home community work in concert with the standing company to rebuild thesocial, political and physical infrastructure of the community being helped. This sort of“adoption” increases the possibility that aid is offered in an intelligent, highly specificway. At the same time, it makes the community-building process more personal, and