Lawmakers draft bill to elevate reserve officer to U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff

The Senate National Guard Caucus is drafting legislation that would add a four-star Guard commander to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, a bold move to put a reserve officer in the highest echelon of military leadership.

If enacted, the legislation would mark the first major change to the nation's premier military planning and advisory group in two decades. The move is intended to give the National Guard "more muscles" in dealing with the Pentagon bureaucracy and ensure that civilian and active-duty military leaders will consult the Guard on decisions affecting the force, Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo., chairman of the caucus, said Wednesday.

The bill, which Bond hopes to push to the Senate floor as early as this year, would elevate the National Guard Bureau chief to a four-star billet, putting the position on par with the chiefs of each military service, the Joint Chiefs chairman and vice chairman, all of whom are four-star generals or admirals.

The legislation also would require another Guard officer fill the deputy commander position at U.S. Northern Command, which coordinates homeland defense missions. In addition, it would protect the Army and Air National Guard's weapons-buying budgets by separating them from the services' own procurement accounts.

Bond and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the caucus co-chairman, laid out their proposal Wednesday at the first of a series of hearings by the independent National Guard and Reserve Commission. The Guard and its closely allied veterans groups enjoy universal support in the Capitol, where dozens of lawmakers recently banded together to oppose an Army decision to pay for 17,000 fewer Guard soldiers in fiscal 2007 instead of budgeting for the entire authorized force level of 350,000 troops.

"I am convinced such legislation will eventually pass," Leahy said. But Bond acknowledged that "some of our friends in the Pentagon may have a minimum amount of high enthusiasm for it."

Bond asked the commission to consider the legislation as one of its first orders of business, and include its initial views about enlarging the Joint Chiefs of Staff in its preliminary 90-day report due June 1. The commission will send its final report, including proposed legislative language on a range of issues, to Congress March 1, 2007.

During the hearing, lawmakers gave the 13-member commission a long to-do list for its year-long review of the Guard and reserve. Top issues will include the reserve component's equipment budgets, force size and missions.

"What should the Guard and reserve do?" said Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. "Apparently everything because we're asking them to do everything."

The panel also will consider benefits and retirement packages for reserve forces, which have been beefed up in the last several budgets largely because of record deployments since 2001.

But Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner, R-Va., cautioned that the panel must find a balance between rewarding reserve troops and overextending benefits. There must be a "differential" in benefits offered to the reserves and active-duty troops to reflect the greater demands placed on fulltime, active-duty forces, he said.