Training to increase for Guard and Reserve troops
I know you guys have been discussing the cuts that are being eyed to the pay of National Guard troops. I noticed that some of you were complaining, and rightly so, about the time you spend during the week preparing for your drills. Well, I’m sure this won’t do much for retention, either. From the Stars & Stripes:
[Guard and Reserve soldiers] will keep preparing for war, with training periods away from home each year that would grow from a two-week block to up to seven weeks, Gen. Ray Odierno, Army chief of staff said in an interview Monday with USA Today. Drilling one weekend a month would continue.
“As they go through it, their readiness will increase, the number of days training will increase,” Odierno said.
And the Pentagon is mouthing the words that they’re ready to accept the retention losses;
“You might have some guys who will be OK with that and some people who will part ways,” [Army Maj. Michael] Moricas said.
They claim that the upside for soldiers is their five-year plans, so the troops will know when their training is coming up. Of course, they’ll also know if they should stay or leave the service. The brass acts like retention is a steady number that won’t changed because of their policies. What they’re actually admitting is that, by cutting the active force to make the White House demands on their manpower reductions will impact readiness.
This has the fingerprints of the White House all over it. In their planning, everything remains constant irrespective of the effect their planning will have – like planning on higher tobacco taxes funding their healthcare not figuring that people will quit smoking and that revenue won’t come in like they thought it would.
So, by planning readiness based on the Guard and Reserves manpower remaining constant, isn’t planning at all. Just hoping with your fingers crossed that people are too stupid to toss their Reserve and Guard careers aside.
Odierno said that National Guard members and reservists acquired combat skills the Army sorely needs now as it tries to save money by reducing its ranks of full-time soldiers from 570,000 to 490,000 by 2017, and cuts the number of combat brigades from 45 to 32.
So it only makes sense that you drive those skills that “the Army sorely needs” away from military service. Or something.
Category: Military issues, Reserve Issues
I liked their last plan “Guard and Reserve will be deployed for 1 year and home for 5 years” I laughed when I got home in Jan 07 (18 months activated) and packed up again in June 09 (15 months activated) and I learned recently that ‘dwell time’ for individual Guardsmen is 18 months (as I was being considered for another deployment) but some of my buddies who got back with me in October 10 are going again. Way to go Ray
Between this plan for increased training time and continuing the 1 in 5 deployment cycle past the end of the current wars, and the QRMC’s recommendations, I’m rapidly loosing any incentive other than sheer patriotism to stay in the USAR. I love being a soldier, and I love being an officer in the United States Army, but between these two, it’s going to be tougher than ever to run two careers (mil/civ) simultaneously and maintain my own personal standards of quality in both. Too bad for the Army; They are going to loose a lot of good people.
I concur, they are going to lose people with this move, and the quality of those retained will be lessened. A good many HIGH quality professional people serve in the Guard and Reserve, they already do a crazy job of juggling their military and professional civilian careers, this is gonna be death on that demographic.
The elephant in the room is the belief that our Chiefs of Staff, Ops leaders, and members of the House & Senate Military & Intelligence Subcommittees are smart. The most of them. Too smart to not recognize the impact this will have on readiness, and thus on the security of our nation. Therefore, one may safely conclude that the Chiefs, and the rest are choosing personal remuneration, advancement, retirement bennies, and future jobs over the safety of the country and over the integrity of their Oaths. That being said, why does anyone still respect anything they say or do?
I’ll be blunt: I will not be signing reenlistment papers in September.
When they make decisions like this they don’t think about the effects on the NG or Reserve troops who have to actually do the work. Its like hey we can do this on the cheap using the “part-timers” without even consulting any of troops this will affect. Oh well I guess they just care about numbers…
If you want to increase training for the Guard, here’s an easy way that will help Guardsmen who are highly motivated and/or need more time on orders because the job market is sucking. Open up more slots for schools and provide money so the Guard doesn’t have to choose between sending guys to school for individual skills and sending them to AT for unit training. That would create more soldiers trained on the skills a unit needs for deployment and make it easier to train up to full speed when activations come.
Also, send mobile training teams to the various Guard training centers to teach skills on top of the line equipment that often hasn’t filtered down to the Guard yet. Like Ravens, Pumas, Harris Radios, MRAPs etc. And actually start moving that stuff down to the reserve components so they don’t see it for the first time in theater.
When the classes and schools become available the Guard and Reserves can send soldiers all the time. They’ll get more trained soldiers and also find out who their more motivated ones are. The units will also be better trained all of the time instead of just right before a deployment.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t they do the very same thing in the 60’s right before they brought back the draft ?.
As a nat guard puke, I actually enjoyed my deployments…but the training before was a total waste of time.
Before Bosnia, they would call us on a Thur to tell us to come in that weekend. Then when we got there, it was off the wall shit somebody made up. We did that for a total of 60 days total before going on active duty. so, many folks had problems with their normal paying jobs (despite what some think of drill pay, I made more in one day of fucking overtime than working 2 days of drill- so I actually lost fucking money).
Then when we were put on orders, the training was so fucking retarded….I was amazed that the REGULAR ARMY came up with such stupid shit.
Then for Iraq, the Regualar Army assumed none of us knew anything…so they made us do all kinds of silly shit. When we got to the gun ranges, I ended up helping because of my regular job of range master.
Over all, the regular army didn’t have a clue what the guard could do.
But, now that I’ve got my 20 plus years, I don’t give a rats ass.
Just more evidence that the five-sided mad house doesn’t understand who the modern Guard/Reserve are and why we keep signing up.
Just hope that when it comes time to re-enlist for the final stretch to my 20 year letter that the wife doesn’t look me in the eye and tell me that it’s her or the guard.
Seven weeks, eh? If it happens my ETS date can’t come soon enough.
I haven’t drilled in over three years and this still pisses me off.
Gee, I sure hope they aren’t counting on people being dumb enough to sign on for another tour. Less pay, more work, more chicken s–t stuff, less incentive. Sounds like a plan to dismantle the military to me.
I did 5 years in the Guard. It seemed like we never had enough time to do the things we needed to get done. Personally, I would of liked if all our drill weekends were MUTA 6’s. Then make the 15 day AT out to 21 or so.
Just remember folks, more motivated does NOT always equal better quality…..
Army Times has been talking about something simIlar for a while. If they are effectively going to cut my pay, then letting me drill more might help me make it up. But then I’ve been a guard bum for a while now, so my situation Is not typical. Unless you have a very flexible schedule on the civilian side-you will probably head for the house.
And if we’re going to get to train at a 7 week AT can we at least go back to combat arms? My state went from an Armor Division to a light infantry division. 3 heavy brigades somehow became a BfSB, MEB, Sustainment BDE, Engineer BDE, CAB and 2 light infantry BDEs. PMCS, POSH and EO training for 7 weeks is a sure way to reduce end strength
In reading the QDR, phrases indicating the highly paid civilians believe Troops will bend to their will for less money comes up a LOT. Phrases suggesting that the job Troops do is appropriately compensated for the risks and sacrifices seem to be completely missing.
Nevertheless, the highly paid civilians are too smart to believe that the things they are suggesting would not result in high attrition rates. Then again, this Administration has already asked for cuts of 100,000 (which have been blocked by Congress) and 50,000 (previously approved under the Pelosi-Reid Congress) and 20,000 in the Guard (2009).
It has every appearance that they INTEND to get Troops to decrease the size of the military, and the question becomes will the American people vote him out, and if they do, will Romney change the course? or just slow down the ship.
I don’t know what Romney will do. I don’t like his silence on the subject, but I do know what Obama is trying to do, and THAT must be stopped.
As a former guardsman, I can say that this shit pisses me off. Paying guardsmen less, increasing their AT period, and increasing their Deployments. Last time I checked, the Guard was supposed to be kept in RESERVE to the Army Reserves.
At this rate, what is going to happen to the states when they need to call up their Guard units for an emergency, but their units are over-deployed and over budget?
Is DA going to set up a fund to compensate small employers for the income and time lost by this increased tempo? RA always seems to forget that we have to deal with employers, and they don’t say “Roger, Sir” and move out smartly when you screw with their productivity. I can hear Congress squawking now when the business owners begin to bitch.
I’m also going to assume that DA is planning on filling gaps left by departed Guard/Reserve with Active troops that are ETSing.
This just had me in a bad mood because I was talking on another page and a AD guy was talking shit about what we were crying about because we don’t have to do all the extra stuff he has to do like staff duty etc… Then he goes on to talk about his deployments, like we all haven’t had them. It made me realize how little some of the other parts of the servie understand what NG and reserves do vs AD.
The cities have always cut fire and police services first when they needed to cut spending. The services you need the most are ALWAYS the ones they cut first. Even the video game Sym City suggests you cut the police and fire funding until you get your city going, then cut it again when there are budget shortfalls.
Why is it that the cities and the Federal government never cut their welfare paments, or cut back on grants, or make every employee take a certain percentage cut in pay? Simple: You find out where the leaders priorities are in situations like this. We are finding out something we already knew: The liberal’s priorities are not with the military that keeps us a free republic. Anyone want to speculate why the liberals don’t want us to be able to defend ourselves?
At this point they are going to continue to lose their best and brightest; those are the people who CAN hack it on the outside, make a good living and just do the Guard because it is the right thing to do. The pay is NOT a financial boost, but something to offset the loss.
The best example is when a couple of Cadets were talking shit about being in college to a couple of us enlisted about education and trying to sound like badasses. There was a SFC (infantry) who was about to graduate with a Master’s in Biology, 3 long tours, and 18 years; a SPC (Medic) with a Pharm D.; a SGT in his last semester of Pharm D. school, 1 long tour, and 7 years; and SSG who has a Master’s from a top 15 school, 2 long tours, and 13 years.
Why should these guys even show up to drill? We all have multiple DD 214s with honorables (the Guard doesn’t give 214s), lose money at drill, are overqualified for our jobs. We DON’T need the Guard/Reserves, we just understand that guys like us are needed as backup to stand in the grey between this life’s white and war’s black. The Guard is a sacrifice of time, money, and pissed off families; at what point does that become too much?
This is what higher misses. They don’t want the middle age guys who need the guard (minus the full timers), they need those who see it as a necessary, patriotic sacrifice (to include deployments in which I know guys who will literally miss 6 figures in potential earnings). Too bad they don’t know it.
@9: It is not Regular Army per se that comes up with the training. FORSCOM has a phone book size training guidance that mobilizing Guard and Reservists have to complete prior to deployment. It is set in stone and the mob stations have absolutly no control over it. I know this because I am a Regular Army grunt that didn’t even know Camp Atterbury existed until I came down on orders for it. I deal with 1st Army on a daily basis. I understand the frustration that comes with having to complete usesless training that is dictated by someone so far above the realm or reality of the average unit. There is so much crap in the guidance that makes no sense. Here is an example; Soldiers going to the Horn of Africa must complete reflexive fire yet Soldiers going to the Stan do not. Sorry for the spelling and gramatical errors, I haven’t had my coffee yet.
One of the reasons I got out of the Guard rather than reenlisting was 5 day IDT weekends and nearly month long ATs. An employer can deal with the accepted schedule and can accept deployments, but they don’t count on losing you for a couple of days each month. And the ones with decent military leave policies start forcing you to take vacation days after two weeks. Sure, they can’t fire you for it, but they can find other reasons to get rid of you, especially in at will states.
I just enlisted in the Guard earlier this month! With this possibly being a part of my future and the other bullshit pay cuts they’re talking about, I’m so happy about to be here.
The National Guard has been advocating Super MUTAs for the last two to three years, but have not increased the overall time spent at drill. Most of the younger troops have complained very little, but the experienced troops, who have civilian careers, have been hit hard and the NG has lost quite a bit of the “acquired combat skilled” soldiers Big Army will need. I do believe that if these longer training periods are thrown on to the Reserve and NG components in addition to the normal monthly drills, the White House will effectively reduce the Army’s capability to function in anyting larger than a border dispute between DC and VA!
Reading this article, I have never been happier to have my 20 year retirement letter in hand.
Sooner or later, “Big Army” is going to learn that many are in the USAR and ARNG because they didn’t want to serve full-time, 24/7/365.
Unfortunately, it’s looking like it may take a mass exodus to get that point across. If that happens, I just hope it doesn’t cause mass mission failure under fire as well.
@ Just Plain Jason: He thinks we have no additional duties? lolololol. Lets see here. Lets just look at me for starters.
I’m the XO of my hospital company, (350pax assigned, not including attached and strays drilling with us) I’m still filling my old position as the company S3 OIC, I’m the company awards officer, I’m the voting assistance officer and somehow I get stuck doing all the godamn laws of land warfare/geneva conventions lectures. This is in addition to battalion tasking my unit with shit because they know they can dump it on us and we can handle it. Oh, and did I mention we are a HHC? So we have downtrace units to take care of on top of all of this.
Tell your Regular army smart guy he needs to spend some time here before he opens his fat yap. Almost all of us have been active/deployed/mobilized at some point to active duty. Can he say that he’s done his time in the USAR?
@Hondo: Until about a month ago, I was planning on career. It was a pain in the ass, but I thought I’d be able to juggle work, graduate school, kids, mobilizations, AT’s, military professional schools and the occasional TDY for 13 more years. Now, I’m not too sure. Like I’ve said before, I love being a soldier, and I love being an officer, but I’m not too sure that this is the reserves that I joined. This is more like Active Duty-Lite. Same shitty taste, completely less benefits, now with a new, shitty, color changing line on the can that tells you when your pay is about to get cut.
Like Dave Thul, I am glad I got my 20 year letter in hand too. I was hoping to make it two or three more years, but if this is the way it is…I would have no problem retiring.
I work for the Federal Bureau of Prisons where I get 15 days of military leave a year for Reserve duty. Where does General Odierno think I can pull out 5 extra weeks of leave to cover keeping my retirement date from being extended out?
Why would any sane business owner hire a veteran who still had reserve time left on his/her contract? Or a Guardsman or Reservist for that matter. Especially when, as a drilling member of a unit, an employee could potentially be gone for up to 90 days a year-not including possible real world deployments.
The new Guard 4 star better put his foot down and get this squashed now.
Why would any sane business owner hire a veteran who still had reserve time left on his/her contract?
And then the administration can’t figure out why veteran unemployment is 12-14 percent. So of course, they have to spend shitloads of money on “outreach” programs to “encourage” companies to hire veterans.
But as you’ve said, what company would hire a person knowing they’re not going to be around for six weeks (or more) every year, or one full year out of five? Sure, they can’t **SAY** a person’s veteran status is the reason he/she didn’t get hired, but they sure as hell can come up with a myriad of other reasons why, “Well, gee, he just wasn’t what we were looking for…”
Actually, Trent, your retirement date wouldn’t be extended. LWOP-US (unpaid leave to perform military duties) counts towards Federal retirement. However, doing that would indeed screw with your high-3 average if it occurred within 3 years of your civilian retirement.
Been there, done that. Let me know if you’d like to discuss off-line.
Hondo, that may be true but my retirement date has been moved to September of next year, instead of next March.
But please contact me as I am getting ready to fight it. Are you on AKO?
Trent: I’ll drop you a note at the address you used while commenting here. I’ll reference this exchange.
The seven week training cycle will be a killer…its going to hurt the pocketbook, and hurt my employers willingness to hire additional NG soldiers, imo. Crazy
@37 You people are a disgrace what ever happened to selfless service? You guys are crying the blues over losing some money? I am glad I won’t have to serve with you.. I always hated Nasty Girls anyway!!
@38 Uncle, Just wanted to say, I serve Selflessly, not worried to much about money…however, the bill collector at the end of the day still wants his cut from my wallet. Guard and Reserve units have different challenges then AD, but they are still challenges. The balancing act of finances/family/service is a tough one…. I want 7 weeks of AT, I want that time with my Soldiers…but I can’t point the finger at a brother in arms who needs to take care of the people who will take care of him/her when they retire. It’s still selfless service but there has to be a practical side also.
@38…fuck I’ll be glad when summer vacation is finally over and you little douchetools are back in school.
Trent: check the e-mail address you entered when commenting above.
@38 Uncle: Really? You had to go there? What all these posters are saying is just reality. Selfless service? Let me tell you: I do Army work at my civilian job because my civilian employer is incredible. I have to work during the week because everyone I need to contact with problems/questions/stuff my soldiers need only works M-F 8-4 pm. Not very convenient for a drilling Reservist! I do not get paid for ANY of the time I use during the week, the ocnference calls calls every two weeks for two hours–always during dinner time. I don’t get paid for the time I have to run down to the armory to outprocess a Soldier mid month, I don’t get paid for the time i spend laying out classes for my downrange supply sgts on new “good ideas” from Division. I am a SSG doing a CW job. I would love to go to Warrant school but I simply cannot take 30 days of Warrant school, two years in a row from both my family and my civilian job. I make these choices, I own my decisions but I will not allow someone to question the selfless service of a Reservist or a NG Soldier. If it truly were about the pay, we’d either gone active or not joined at all. The frustration is competely about continually extending the requirements of the Reserve forces without any understanding of the tightrope we walk with our families, our civilian employers and our Reserve unit and our Soldiers. Most days I feel like I don’t make any of them happy!
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