GovernmentExecutive.com

National Guard members are waging a concerted, last-ditch grassroots lobbying campaign to persuade lawmakers to adopt language that would boost the heavily deployed Guard's prestige and influence in the corridors of the Pentagon.

The effort centers around a tentative decision by House-Senate conference leaders last week to scrap a provision in the Senate version of the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill that would have elevated the Guard chief to a four-star general and given the National Guard Bureau more authority to communicate directly with the Defense secretary and other federal agencies.

Success in persuading leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee to overturn the conference leaders' decision might be unlikely this late in the legislative process, but the Guard has a strong grassroots record and heavy support among lawmakers who fear that overseas deployments are taxing the state-run units, supporters said.

In addition, the push comes only weeks before critical elections that will determine if control of Congress remains in the hands of Republicans, the party that traditionally counts military personnel among its key constituents.

"We know this is a stiff climb, and we know that the odds are against us," said John Goheen, a spokesman for the National Guard Association of the United States. "But this is important."

Guard members, who gathered this weekend for an annual conference in Albuquerque, N.M., bombarded Capitol Hill with calls and more than 2,100 e-mails Saturday and Sunday, with hundreds more e-mails expected Monday.

Guard members at the meeting also signed banners in support of the Senate language, which may be unveiled during a public event in Washington Tuesday that will be hosted by Sens. Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., co-chairmen of the Senate National Guard Caucus, aides said.

"We're doing everything we can to mobilize the National Guard Association membership to make contact with their congressional delegations and also the Big Four," said Maj. Gen. Roger Lempke, Nebraska's top Guard officer and the president of the Adjutant Generals Association of the United States.

Meanwhile, Lempke and fellow adjutant generals are calling the four leaders of the Armed Services committees, imploring them to change their mind. And they have drafted a letter to the editor that they might send to newspapers around the country, but Lempke said they had not yet finalized doing that.

Defense authorization conferees originally planned to wrap up work on the bill last week, but lawmakers left for the weekend before resolving several personnel and other issues. Aides said they hoped to complete the conference report in the next several days, with a House vote possible this week.

For Guard members and state leaders, any delay buys them additional time to contact lawmakers. "The longer they go, I think the more difficult time they're going to have knocking [the Senate provision] out," said Lempke.

In addition to the issue of the Guard chief's status, National Guard state leaders are urging conferees to delete language in both the House and Senate defense authorization bills that would allow activation of the National Guard during domestic emergencies without governors' consent. The language also is opposed by the National Governors' Association, which issued a release last week stating that the provision allows for "unwarranted expansions of federal authority."

COMMENTS

• Careful there, Taxpayer. The Guard has and wants to remain part of the "total force" concept. However, under Rumsfeld, the guard is used as nothing more than cheap source of labor. It clearly has been the one reason why the active duty forces have not been expanded. I spent 13 years in the Guard. I left in 2005 to take a job overseas and plan to finish my time and retire later this year. Believe me, I've been called up more than I care to admit. Justifying call-ups to employers hasn't been easy and from Guard friends I hear it's getting more difficult. Employers see the smoke and mirrors of Washington. Everything I learned during my time was we normally "back fill" for active units deployed overseas. That hasn't happened. Instead we're put in for training for six months, then you go to war for 12 months. Contrast that to the Army that spends a year. What's that? No real training, whose fault is it that training dollars aren't put into the Guard? Thanks to the Republican Congress that believes in giving everything in the country away to its military to support national security and use contractors is where the blame lies. Have we seen benefits? None, except our freedoms are slowly being reduced and the working man's social benefits established under FDR are disappearing. I disagree strongly with merging the Air Force into the Army. Just as I disagree with "space" mission of the Air Force. It serves no purpose. Clearly international law states space is for all countries, no one can control that arena. The Air Force active component should be merged into its Air Guard and Reserve forces. Today, most of the airlift comes from those aspects of the total force concept. I find some of your ideas for pay very worthwhile into looking at, but in the end, I can't see some 20-year-old kid who plays video games all the time, wanting a 401(k) and other benefits a civil service employee receives. Imagine that same kid telling his supervisor I only work 40 hours a week. Or telling that to Iraqis. No war after 5 p.m. Give me a break! Somewhere in the Pacific Posted September 20, 2006 1:38 AM
• From this article and the position of the Guard -- it appears that the Guard does not want to be part of the "total force." The guard wants to be a separate branch of the military that does its own thing as it decides and not as the service decides. The move to the all volunteer military was a big mistake on the part of Congress because they did nothing but drop the draft. They did not restructure the services, they did not restructure the military pay system or the benefits system, they did not improve housing, and they did not do anything significant to make a volunteer system work properly. Congress needs to get rid of the Guard and reserves as they are structured today. They also need to get rid of the Air Force by putting it back into the Army and Navy. The only valid function of the Air Force as a separate force may be the space program. The service members are not paid correctly and have all kinds of allowances that are obsolete and should be discontinued. Pay the guys and let them decide how to spend the money. There should be no housing allowance but housing should be provided and the military members should rent it at market rates. Likewise, they should pay for their utilities and water just like "normal" people do. Health care should be for life and should involve use of private insurance companies where the government pays a part of the premium just as they do for any civil servant. The retirement program should be a 401(k)-type program that is portable and under the same features the guys would see in the private sector but with greater matching by the government for the first ten years of service. Government also should get rid of the VA and treat the military as employees who get their benefits while on active duty. The VA was designed to help guys catch up with others that had not been disrupted by the draft. Now that the force is all volunteers there is not a need for the VA. Congress really has this one screwed up totally. All they did was end the draft! They never created an all volunteer military! Taxpayer Posted September 19, 2006 7:18 AM