[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 31, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9308-S9309]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE GATHERING STORM

 Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to read an 
article by Maj. Gen. Edward J. Philbin, which I ask be printed in the 
Record. In the wake of downsizing our national defense apparatus, we 
will come to rely even more on the capabilities of United States' 
Reserve Forces. As Members of Congress, we should take it upon 
ourselves to insure that guard and reserve units are prepared to carry 
this mission well into the next century.
  The article follows:

                    [From National Guard, June 1996]

                          The Gathering Storm

                (By Maj. Gen. Edward J. Philbin (ret.))

       Recently, I was conducting experiments on the aerodynamic 
     behavior of low-altitude, low-velocity spherical bodies at 
     the Andrews Air Force Base golf course. Like all weather-wary 
     flyers, I kept a suspicious eye on the mutating cloud 
     formations overhead. Across the initially cloudless, blue sky 
     crept wisps of white, which slowly burgeoned into rising 
     silver cloud towers, the pinnacles fattening into great 
     overhanging mushrooms of gold and purple. Progressively, the 
     sky was darkened by a great sea of these forbidding gray 
     thunderstorms. And then, these ``duty boomers'' unleashed a 
     lightning barrage, which generated peals of thunder, followed 
     by a monsoon-like deluge of water.
       With apologies to Winston Churchill for appropriating one 
     of his titles, I was struck by the similarity between this 
     atmospheric spectacle and the acerbic treatment accorded the 
     Army Guard since Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm almost 
     six years ago. At that time an orchestrated public affairs 
     attack on the Army Guard was launched, concentrating on the 
     three roundout brigades federalized on November 30, 1990. The 
     most popular target of abuse was Georgia's 48th Infantry 
     Brigade, roundout to the 24th Infantry Division, because of 
     its alleged post-mobilization ineptitude at the National 
     Training Center (NTC). The fact that the 48th Brigade had, 
     before mobilization, been consistently evaluated as combat 
     ready by the 24th Infantry Division was ignored. Also ignored 
     was the 48th's call-up 3\1/2\ months after its parent 
     division was alerted for Gulf deployment. Also never 
     mentioned was the fact that, despite all the obstacles placed 
     in its path at the NTC, the 48th was revalidated as combat 
     ready in 91 calendar days, which was just one day more than 
     scheduled, and on the very day the cease-fire went into 
     effect. During those 91 days, the 48th Infantry Brigade spent 
     only 65 days actually training.
       Despite these facts, the 48th has been continually flogged 
     and castigated by the media for ``failure'' to deploy to the 
     combat area. With relentless determination, the media have 
     published a rash of articles emphasizing fictional failings 
     rather than positive accomplishments of the 48th, concluding 
     that since the 48th `'couldn't hack it,'' then none of the 
     Army Guard ``can hack it.'' This World War II tactic relies 
     on the theory that ``if you tell a big enough lie, and tell 
     it often enough, most people will eventually believe it.'' 
     The audience for which this propaganda is intended is the 
     members of Congress in the hope they will relegate the Army 
     National Guard to a state constabulary.
       The Reserve Officers Association (ROA), in its May issue of 
     the ROA National Security

[[Page S9309]]

     Report, published the written testimony of Richard Davis, 
     General Accounting Office (GAO), which was presented at a 
     hearing before Senator John McCain (R-Arizona). Davis, among 
     other things, claimed that ``at least one reserve component 
     has not sufficiently adapted to the new challenges [of 
     regional dangers rather than a global Soviet threat] and 
     therefore may not be prepared to carry out its assigned 
     missions.'' Guess which one? It's the Army National Guard. 
     Davis went on to state that (1) the ``Army National Guard has 
     considerable excess combat forces'' while the ``big Army'' 
     hungers for more combat support units; (2) ``the ability of 
     some Army National Guard combat brigades to be ready for 
     early deployment missions * * * is highly uncertain,'' 
     suggesting that Army National Guard roles and missions should 
     be ``modified;'' and (3) the Air National Guard force 
     dedicated to continental air defense ``* * * is not needed 
     today'' and eliminating them would free ``considerable 
     funds'' for better use. Since this issue will be resolved 
     cooperatively with the United States Air Force and the 
     Congress, no further comment will be made here.
       Davis, whose resume is devoid of any hint of military 
     experience, grounded his opinion upon the alleged military 
     deficiencies of the three Army National Guard brigades, 
     federalized for the Gulf War. However, those three brigades 
     met the Army's deployability criteria, but were never given 
     the mission to deploy and no sealift was ever requested or 
     scheduled for them. I repeat: All three roundout brigades and 
     the three additional Guard battalions (Texas, Alabama and 
     South Carolina) met the readiness deployability criteria 
     established by the Army Mobilization and Operations Planning 
     System (AMOPS) on the first day of federalization.
       The truth, obscured by the slanderous billingsgate that has 
     been spewed on the Army Guard, is that Operation Desert 
     Shield/Desert Storm was a significant success for the Army 
     National Guard as well as the ``big Army.'' Army Guard 
     volunteers filled critical positions early in the crisis. It 
     was successful in rapidly deploying 60 COL/LTC level commands 
     to SWA, all of which made a significant contribution to 
     Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield.
       Due to years of preparation, Army Guard units were ready 
     for federalization and were successful. All Army Guard units 
     were at their respective mobilization stations within 72 
     hours of federalization. More than 97 percent of ARNG units 
     met or exceeded deployability criteria when federalized. 
     Sixty-seven percent of all Army Guard units deployed within 
     45 days of being federalized. The primary obstacle to an even 
     earlier deployment was unavailability of sealift and airlift.
       Almost 100 percent of the Army Guard soldiers called-up 
     reported for active duty and more than 94 percent of the 
     units' soldiers were deployable. Of the unit troops, only six 
     percent (3,974 of 62,411) were ineligible for deployment 
     under statutory provisions and DoD guidelines.
       Before federalization, the combat readiness of the Army 
     National Guard was at an historic high. The Army Guard 
     demonstrated its ability to alert, federalize and rapidly 
     deploy to the theater of operations (CENTCOM)--reports to the 
     contrary notwithstanding.
       Did Mr. Davis (B.S. degree in accounting; M.S. in business 
     administration) consider any of these data in arriving at the 
     apocalyptic conclusions about the Army National Guard's 
     military prowess? If he did, he didn't mention it in his 
     written or oral testimony. But his oral testimony was 
     liberally buttressed with statements such as: ``I think,'' 
     ``I believe,'' ``it's my opinion,'' but no evidence was 
     given.
       Our ``good friends'' in the ROA never mentioned these facts 
     to their readers. Nor did ROA mention that for various 
     reasons a considerable portion of the Army Reserve is not 
     deployable. Probably that is the reason the Army Reserve is 
     energetically blocking the path of Army Reservists who wish 
     to transfer to the Army Guard. ROA claims that the purpose of 
     its National Security Report is to inform Reservists of the 
     facts of readiness issues. Yet, ROA publishes only material 
     that denigrates the Army Guard. The motive may be found in 
     the following excerpt from a commentary printed beside the 
     Davis testimony:
       ``Anyone reading carefully between the lines of the 
     articles contained in this month's NSR will become aware of 
     the riptides and undercurrents that can impact negatively on 
     the future size and role of the Reserves if we (ROA) are not 
     careful. The problem is that many Reserve officers assigned 
     to units feel they do not have to join ROA in order to take 
     advantage of the benefits of the highly effective legislative 
     work ROA does on their behalf on Capitol Hill.''
       Sounds more like a membership drive than a crusade for the 
     truth.
       ROA followed Mr. Davis' fantasy with two other articles 
     presented as if they were hot-off-the-press news flashes: 
     ``21st Century Force: A Federal Army and a Militia'' and 
     ``The State Militia.'' In fact, as the Brits say, they were 
     ``mutton dressed up as lamb,'' having been written in 1993 at 
     the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, by COL 
     Charles Heller, who was an Army Reserve advisor.
       Heller's first article blames the ``inordinate influence'' 
     of the AGAUS and NGAUS for the ``big Army's'' alleged 
     difficulty in structuring a stronger Total Army. Not 
     surprisingly, he paints the Army Reserve and ROA as more 
     responsive to and supportive of the ``big Army.'' 
     Predictably, Heller alleges that the Army Reserve call-up 
     and its service in the Gulf War were exemplary, while Army 
     Guard combat maneuver elements required, ``lengthy post-
     mobilization training and then [did] not deploy to the 
     Gulf.'' Heller concludes that, ``the Total Army should be 
     organized into two components--a federal Army (Active Army 
     and the U.S. Army Reserve) and a militia (the state Army 
     National Guard.'') He stops short, just barely, of 
     advocating equipping the Army Guard with horses, lances 
     and swords.
       Heller proposes that the Army Reserve be made responsible 
     for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). That's 
     very interesting, since the ROA leadership, which published 
     Heller's musings, now professes to have utterly no interest 
     in seeking new jobs for the Army Reserve. Yet, they 
     feverishly sought and probably still seek passage of the 
     Laughlin Bill (H.R. 1646), which would have interjected the 
     Army Reserve into the National Guard's constitutional state 
     mission.
       Very solicitous of the National Guard's welfare, Heller 
     worries that the Army Guard will have no time to train 
     adequately for both the state and federal mission, alleging 
     without explanation that the Army Guard failed in the Gulf 
     deployment and in the Los Angeles riots. He proposes of that 
     the Army Guard should concentrate on the state mission. He 
     also advocates USAR involvement in the state, as well as the 
     federal, mission in a contradiction in his argument, which in 
     his exuberance to redesign the Army Guard, he ignores.
       His opinions and conclusions are heuristic, self-serving, 
     internally contradictory and unsupported by any evidence. All 
     of these allegations are refuted by the actual performance of 
     the Army Guard in the Gulf War. But Heller performs a 
     valuable service by raising an extremely important question: 
     Why have two Army Reserve components? Why, indeed? Certainly, 
     the constitutional framers recognized, as did George 
     Washington, the need to establish a full-time standing army 
     and accordingly gave Congress the power to raise and support 
     armies--and only standing armies were contemplated by that 
     particular language. The Founding Fathers never intended and 
     the sovereign states never granted the federal government the 
     power to organize and maintain a federal militia over which 
     the states would have no control. They recognized the 
     necessity of a well-regulated militia and, in the Militia 
     Clause of the Constitution (Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 16), they 
     made provisions accordingly. It is under this clause that the 
     militia and its modern counterpart, the National Guard, have 
     developed.
       A propaganda storm has been gathering and thickening around 
     the Army National Guard since the Gulf War. These libels are 
     intended to generate thunderous doubt about the capability of 
     the Army Guard to perform its federal mission; to generate 
     lightning bolts of criticism of the Army Guard from the 
     Congress and ultimately to create a legislative deluge in 
     which the Army Guard will sink into oblivion. This storm has 
     been energized by the hunger of the National Guard would-be 
     competitors to co-opt our missions and the share of the 
     federal military budget that supports these missions.
       There are two ways to deal with an imminent thunderstorn. 
     One way is to huddle under an umbrella, close your eyes to 
     the lightning, put your fingers in your ears to mute the 
     thunder and hope for survival. The other way is to seed the 
     clouds with a defusing substance like silver iodide, 
     dissipate their destructive energy and make them vanish. The 
     time may be at hand when supporters of the National Guard 
     must resort to the defusing technique, which might very well 
     answer, once and for all, Heller's question. Why have two 
     Army Reserve components?
       Why, indeed, when the United States Constitution authorizes 
     only one--the National Guard.
       Note: As this article was being written, troops of the 48th 
     Brigade were packing up to once again deploy to the NTC. On 
     April 23, Mr. Davis' GAO Division notified DoD that it was 
     initiating, on its own authority, a review of ``Roles, 
     Missions, Functions and Costs of the Army Guard and Army 
     Reserve.'' Be assured that the NGAUS will be scrutinizing 
     both events for any signs of dissembling.

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