“To be honest, we feel betrayed.” That’s what one National Guard gunship pilot told me when I asked him about the Army’s plan to strip the Guard of all its AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. That plan — still awaiting approval by President Obama before he includes it in his budget request for fiscal year 2015… Keep reading →

The war hasn’t started, yet. But unless the regular Army and the National Guard can resolve their differences behind closed doors before the president’s budget request is publicly submitted sometime in February — and prospects are dim — there will be open, brutal conflict on Capitol Hill on a scale not seen since the 1990s.… Keep reading →

As budgets tighten, will the National Guard and the regular Army go to war? Not if Gen. Frank Grass, chief of the National Guard Bureau, can help it. Peppered with questions about the conflict today at the National Press Club, Grass carefully redirected almost every one. In fact, he said, December’s last-ditch budget deal to delay… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Gen. Frank Grass, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, seemed pretty chipper this morning over breakfast. That’s something you would not have seen from the Guard’s leadership the last time America faced a major drawdown to its armed forces, when the Guard and the regular Army engaged in fratricidal budget battles. This time round,… Keep reading →

Cancelled training. Deferred maintenance. Grounded aircraft. That’s been the damage to military readiness from the mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration in 2013. Now the Vice-Chief of Staff of the Army says the service may have to keep many units at lower levels of readiness for years. This is not a short-term expedient but new… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Last year, the US Air Force fell face-first onto a buzzsaw when it proposed dramatic cuts to the Air National Guard, whose supporters raised a storm of protest in the Congress. Now there are signs that the next big budget battle will be between the regular active-duty Army and the Army National Guard. Or,… Keep reading →

Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard infantry officer who has served tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, is a member of Concerned Veterans for America. Is it time for major cuts in U.S. defense spending? According to at least one recent poll, a staggering 76 percent of Americans surveyed believe the answer is “yes.”… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The military Reserves and National Guard have spent a decade operating with unprecedented intensity alongside the regular active-duty force in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, as budget cuts loom, their leaders are fighting hard to keep the funding needed to keep their edge in both training and equipment. Going back to the sleepy days of… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: State governors are complaining to Congress about Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s offer to give the Air National Guard two dozen C-130 aircraft and add back almost 1,200 jobs, saying it isn’t enough. The president’s budget originally proposed cutting 5,100 Air Guard jobs; last week, Panetta offered to restore 1,179 (by the governors’ count) and… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: As the Army has been handed its largest manpower cuts since the end of the first Persian Gulf War and its acquisition accounts are being squeezed dry trying to find room for programs like Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles in its base budget, the atmosphere among the active, Guard and Reserve components is – surprisingly… Keep reading →