Efforts on Three Fronts

BRAC will be a major topic of conversation in Hawaii. So will Tricare for the Guard and Reserve.

The battle continues this month over the Defense Department's Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) recommendations for the Air National Guard.

For some of you, this has already been a long, tough fight. That's due more to the stakes and intensity of the fight than its actual duration.

It was only May 13 when DoD revealed its base closure list that included an Air Force proposal to ground a third of the Air Guard's flying units.

A process that Congress intended as a mechanism to divest excess real estate had suddenly become a tool to adjust force structure and equipment.

I use the word "suddenly" because the governors, the adjutants general and their staffs were excluded from the Air Force BRAC process, and had no clue to its results.

But the argument here is not just that a process has gone awry-perhaps unlawfully as alleged in a growing number of state lawsuits.

BRAC is supposed to be about saving money. Yet the high costs of widespread personnel turbulence coupled with slashed homeland security capabilities greatly exceed the meager cost savings.

That's why we all took up this fight.

The NGAUS staff began alerting Congress and the press about the perils of the DoD recommendations within hours of their announcement. They've also been in contact with the BRAC Commission, which is reviewing the Pentagon plan.

And this communications campaign won't stop until the matter is resolved.

The NGAUS Board of Directors weighed in last month. We unanimously passed a position paper calling on the BRAC Commission to correct or reject DoD's recommendations for the Air Guard.

"We stand ready to support change that will make America stronger," we stated in the paper sent to the BRAC Commission, "but we must speak out against recommendations that are clearly wrong, based on flawed processes and clearly exceed statutory authority."

This issue will have significantly evolved when we gather in Hawaii for the 127th NGAUS Conference. The BRAC Commission is scheduled to forward its report on the recommendations to the president Sept. 8.

Nevertheless, BRAC will still be a major topic of conversation in Hawaii. So will Tricare for the Guard and Reserve.

We're in the same spot we were in last year with Tricare: The Senate supports access regardless of mobilization status; the House has taken no action. Once again congressional negotiators will settle this difference.

NGAUS has influenced considerable Tricare progress in recent years. Guard soldiers and airmen now have access to Tricare 90 days before mobilization and 180 days after. And some of those redeploying can now purchase health care coverage.

But we still haven't addressed the real concern: medical readiness. That can only be resolved by providing Tricare access regardless of mobilization status.

We'll need your help to get there. Your faxes, e-mails and phone calls to lawmakers can a make real difference. You should be contacting Congress right now.

Overall conferencce structure and content has been another NGAUS priority this summer.

We're working to get the conference recognized for what it is: officer professional development. Certainly, hearing from the president, members of Congress, service secretaries, cabinet-level agencies, technical experts and key flag officers is professional development.

Such formal recognition would allow some officers to attend the conference in a duty status. But achieving it requires a set number of hours spent on professional subjects each conference day.

That's why we're adding more separate professional development sessions to the conference agenda. Ultimately, we may alter the traditional conference structure.

We may not get there this year. If we don't, we'll shift our target to next year's conference in New Orleans.

We'll continue to keep you posted of progress on these three issues and others that affect our profession.

Robert V. Taylor,

Chairman of the Board, NGAUS

Copyright National Guard Association of the United States Aug 2005
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