Joint Staff Director Scherling: Guard not ready for domestic crises; 45% of Air Guard units 'lacking gear needed to... perform their combat mission'

Above: An Air Guardsman marshals a C-17 Globemaster III as it begins a mission from Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The Mississippi Air National Guard transport delivered cargo to Al Asad, Iraq, and returned from Balad Air Base, Iraq, as an aeromedical mission which put the air transport past the 1 millionth hour of flight time.

A senior National Guard Bureau officer said Wednesday that Guard units around the nation are not fully ready to respond to natural disasters or other domestic crises.

“We have seen the readiness of our units here at home decline over time, to the point today where it severely limits our ability to fill our homeland security mission, that of the Department of Defense’s first responders to a domestic disaster,” said Army Guard Maj. Gen. Terry Scherling, the National Guard Bureau’s joint staff director...

Eighty-eight percent of Army Guard units in the U.S. that are not deployed are not mission-ready, she said. Additionally, 45 percent of Air Guard units are “lacking the gear needed to train for and perform their combat mission.”

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