[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 124 (Thursday, September 29, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H8516]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   MORE MONEY FOR GUARD EQUIPMENT NOW

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, about 2 years ago, I traveled to Fort Hood, 
Texas, to see my Guard unit before their deployment to Iraq. I was 
surprised to see that they were using radios that their families had 
bought for them at a place called GI Joe's, a good store in Oregon in 
the Northwest. But the point is they did not have the equipment they 
needed, they could not train on the equipment they were going to use in 
Iraq, and now it turns out that that equipment is not available in the 
United States of America to the National Guard.
  Yesterday, Lieutenant General Steven Blum, chief of the National 
Guard Bureau, said he has about 34 percent of what is needed for the 
National Guard for equipment for homeland security, for emergencies, 
disasters or terrorist attacks. Thirty-four percent. He has radios, he 
said, that cannot communicate with the Army radios because they are 
Korean War vintage radios. This is an embarrassment for this country. 
This administration must give the Guard the tools it needs. We don't 
have to talk about a bigger role for the active duty military. We need 
to give the National Guard, who does not have problems with posse 
comitatus and other things, who performed admirably in this disaster, 
the tools they need for future disasters.
  More money for Guard equipment now.

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