Top Guard Officer: Units will deploy ready

A Soldier from the 25th Infantry Division takes aim at an “insurgent” during the battle for Gahr Albai and Millawa Valley, a war game scenario at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin

No National Guard troops will deploy without the proper training and equipment, the Guard’s top officer told Congress today.

“No soldier, no unit will go to the war not ready,” Lt. Gen. Steven Blum told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee. “It won’t happen. We take the time to do what we have to to make them ready.”

Four Guard brigades were alerted for duty in Iraq on Monday — they are replacement units, not part of the administration’s ongoing surge of troops — and will deploy beginning in December. Subcommittee members cited concerns, detailed in a September Government Accountability Office report, that Guard units have less than one-third of their required equipment. Army Reserve units have about half of the modern gear they would need to deploy, GAO found.

Read the rest at Army Times

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