Send a Message

Last month 10 Army National Guard military policemen sent a rather profound message.

The date was March 20. The 10 Guardsmen, members of Kentucky's 617th Military Police Company, were in three armored Humvees shadowing a supply convoy south of Baghdad. As the line of 30 Chilian trucks passed a farm, it was attacked by dozens of heavily armed insurgents.

Many of you know the rest of the story: the Army Guardsmen quickly counterattacked, driving their Humvees around the stopped trucks to flank the insurgents. They then engaged the numerically superior force with their .50 caliber machine gun and squad automatic weapons.

A 30-minute firefight ensued. Some of the Guardsmen dismounted and took on the enemy with M4 carbines and grenades. When the shooting stopped, 26 insurgents lay dead and another died shortly thereafter. Three Army Guardsmen were wounded; none killed.

The message this battle sent-perhaps a lesson for many outside our ranks-is pretty simple. I'm sure all of you caught it: This is what happens when you provide a National Guard unit with all the training and equipment it needs. Their superior leadership qualities, of course, will always play a role.

Unfortunately, too many of our units aren't provided with all the proper training and equipment. And even units like the 617th Military Police Company will return home to less than adequate health care and an antiquated retirement system.

It's a resources issue. The Defense Department simply doesn't provide the Guard with enough. This is where our association comes in. And this is the time of the year when our individual efforts-yours, mine and those of the rest of our nearly 45,000 members-become paramount.

As I write this and for the next several weeks, Congress is considering the president's fiscal year 2006 defense budget. Once again, it's short of funds in several key areas for the National Guard.

Lawmakers are also debating several pieces of legislation affecting our soldiers and airmen.

The NGAUS Washington staff has provided Congress with a list of the priorities culled from the 104 legislative resolutions passed last summer at the 126th General Conference.

Among our personnel priorities are additional full-time manning, health care for the Guard and Reserve regardless of mobilization status and lowering the eligibility age for retirement pay.

The staff in Washington also informed lawmakers that critical Army Guard needs include more helicopters, Humvees and radios while the Air Guard priorities begin with aircraft modernization and acquisition.

All of these items require Congress to add lunds to the president's budget request. And this is where your help is needed.

Our Washington staff can outline our priorities. They can talk costs and benefits. But money is scarce this year so lawmakers will only spend extra where their constituents-you and others like you-impress on them that added spending is absolutely necessary.

Regular readers of this page will recall that I promised to tell you when communicating with your elected officials in Washington could make a real difference. Now is that time.

Use this magazine as your primer. In the pages that follow, you will find information about the budget (page 26), our complete legislative agenda (page 42), our priority items (page 54) and contact information for every member of Congress (page 60).

An easy way to let your voice be heard is through the NGAUS Web site, which contains sample letters and a direct channel to every lawmaker. Instructions to use these functions can be found in this month's WASHINGTON UPDATE (page18).

Make sure you include in your communication what you, your family and your employer have contributed to the war on terror or what your nation may soon ask you to contribute. In doing so, you also will be sending a profound message.

Robert V. Taylor, Chairman of the Board, NGAUS

Copyright National Guard Association of the United States Apr 2005
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