|
A Giant Step
The Commission on the National Guard and Reserves recommends sweeping reforms in its final report to Congress and the Department of Defense.
By Eric Minton, Editor | The Officer, April 2008
It happened in the late 1940s when the United States made institutional changes to its armed forces to meet the challenges of post-World War II global politics and technology. Another such restructuring of the armed forces is under way today, and its cornerstone may have been laid on Jan. 31 when the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves published its final report to Congress and the secretary of defense.
Subtitled "Transforming the National Guard and Reserves into a 21st Century Operational Force," the 448-page document culminates two years of work by the 12-person commission created by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005. The Commission's research involved 17 days of public hearings, 115 witness, 52 meetings, more than 850 interviews, and analysis of "thousands of documents" from the military services, government agencies, and other experts. The Commission met with service members from flag officers to E-3s, as well as with families and employers.
"We worked diligently to get outside the Beltway," said Commission Chairman Arnold L. Punaro at a Feb. 12 forum during ROA's Mid-Winter Conference in Washington, D.C.
The final report arrived at six major conclusions and offers 95 recommendations based on 163 findings. Now comes the long route to implementation of some of those recommendations-and reshaping of others-in a debate even the Commission members welcome. "We're not hung up on our recommendations. We're hung up on fixing the problems," said Chairmain Punaro, a retired Marine Corps major general who served as commanding general of the 4th Marine Division and director of Reserve Affairs at Headquarters Marine Corps.
"This report is not the panacea," said Commissioner James E. Sherrard III, a retired Air Force Reserve lieutenant general and former chief of the Air Force Reserve and commander of the Air Force Reserve Command. "It is certainly a giant step in changing things and offering recommendations on things that have not changed in 50 years. The strategic force of the past is not the operational force we have today, and we've got to make certain we give them that structure that will support that operational force for years to come because this nation is so dependent on it," Commissioner Sherrard said during the Mid-Winter forum.
The majority of the Commission's recommendations can be implemented in whole or part by addressing existing Department of Defense (DoD) regulations and policies. Other recommendations would need legislative rewriting of the U.S. Code, but much of that can be done this year, commissioners said. "That's why we came out with this report early on in the legislative session so that hopefully Congress will work on them with some resolution this year," said Commissioner Don Stockton, a retired Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel and currently ROA's chairman of the Department National Council Members, speaking at a Feb. 7 ROA Defense Education Forum (DEF) presentation.
Other recommendations would need years of congressional and DoD analysis, and a few would necessitate an evolution in institutional cultures-which could take a generation to fully accomplish. The Commission looked to the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 as model legislation: what that law did for establishing jointness within military operations the Commission hopes a new law can accomplish in "achieving total force integration of the Active and Reserve Components." However, the panel also noted that "it has taken the U.S. armed forces two decades to approach the level of jointness envisioned by the authors of the Goldwater-Nichols Act."
Even if that were the de facto timeline for some of the institutional changes the Commission recommends, the report reads with a sense of urgency. The 21st century is eight years old; the Global War on Terrorism is well into its sixth year; and yet, the nation is increasingly relying on a Reserve Component force shaped in the 20th century and operating under outdated policies and practices. Reform is in a race against the next debilitating disaster or attack on the homeland.
Commissioner Sherrard recalled seeing the flames and smoke billowing up from the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. "That's something I never ever thought I would envision in my life. It was a shock for me, it was a shock to you. But let me tell you, there are other shocks we've got to be prepared for so they don't happen. And that can only be done by some deliberate planning and deliberate identification of capabilities needed."
 Back to top of page
Strategic & Operational Reserve
Starting with the report's subtitle and hammered home by its very first recommendation, the conclusion the Commission reached was that an operational reserve force is a 21st century necessity. The already-ongoing transition to an operational reserve came about by default, and "backing into such a far-reaching decision is a mistake," the report says. Nevertheless, the Commission concluded that an "operational reserve must be readily available for emergencies at home and abroad, and more fully integrated with the Active Component. Simultaneously, this force must retain required strategic elements and capabilities."
The panel arrived at this conclusion unanimously. "We were huge skeptics," Chairman Punaro said. With a panel totaling 288 years of military service in uniform and an additional 186 years of non-military government service, most members couldn't see the shift from a strategic to operational reserve being viable, he said. "Over the course of 21/2 years, we became convinced there was no viable alternative." Growing the active military to achieve what the Guard and Reserves have contributed to the Global War on Terrorism would have cost approximately a trillion dollars, he said. "You couldn't afford it, and demographically you couldn't support it." And going back to the draft is "politically unacceptable and militarily undesirable."
While recommending the formal establishment of an operational reserve through law, the Commission also recomends that "the traditional capabilities of the Reserve Components to serve as a strategic reserve must be expanded and strengthened."
To this end, the panel recommended altering the Reserve Component's three current categories: Ready, Standby, and Retired. In its place would be an Operational Reserve Force, which would periodically serve active duty tours in rotation; a Strategic Ready Reserve Force of Select and Retired Reservists, who could be ready and operationally current for immediate mobilization; and a Strategic Standby Reserve whose members would be called on only "in the most dire circumstances, yet who still constitute a valuable pool of pretrained manpower worth tracking and managing." Such a structure would "support integration, a continuum of service, the operational use of the reserve force, and continuing strategic depth and ability to surge when required," the report says.
The Commission regarded this all in the context of the nation's fiscal challenges, including rising federal deficits and the expansion of entitlement programs. Through its research and a study by the General Accounting Office, the Commission found that on average an Active Duty member costs $126,000 a year compared to $20,000 for a Guard or Reserve member. "The Guard and Reserve are 70 to 75 percent more economical than putting the same capability in the Active Component," Chairman Punaro said.
Back to top of page
DoD & Homeland Security
DoD is the only organization with the capacity and capabilities to deal with catastrophes incapacitating civilian government. Everybody recognizes this fact except Congress, the Commission's report says. "The Commission believes that this reluctance to acknowledge reality places the nation at risk," says the report.
In addition to recommending a legislative overhaul of roles and responsibilities among federal agencies, the Commission recommended that the Guard and Reserves become the lead agents in homeland security, including a rebalancing of forces so that the Reserve Components would be better able to handle homeland crises. The Commission also calls for giving U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) more Reserve Component billets and giving its commander more forces under his or her authority.
The Commission does not want to diminish the Reserve Components' roles in expeditionary forces, but it does see an organizational gap in providing for homeland security, given that the Guard and Reserves comprise a force that is, effectively, already forward deployed in thousands of communities and utilizes military and civilian skills ideally suited to such a mission.
"There's no question that we have radical new threats we face in the homeland, particularly at the catastrophic end of weapons of mass destruction," Chairman Punaro said. "The Guard and Reserves are operationally better suited for that mission than the Active Component; they are geographically better situated; and they are economically a bargain for the taxpayer."
The Commission also sees the need for a shift in mind-set within DoD that would not only properly align forces to cover homeland defense but also alter the services' approach to budgets, training, equipment, and chains of command. "It should not just be a pick-up game," said Commissioner Sherrard. "It is, in fact, an honest-to-goodness legitimate mission. And it must be done without any degradation in [the Reserve Components'] capability to do their wartime overseas preparation. That's the way we are structured to go fight our wars, and we've got to make certain we are able to keep that balance, both here in the homeland as well as in what we do overseas."
The Commission advises that laws clarify lines of authority for military actions in the homeland, and that the governor direct all military forces, including federal units, within his or her state. "Unity of command ... is a time-honored principle of military doctrine," the report says, and "the foundational tenet of national emergency management is that problems should be solved at the lowest level practicable, and most domestic response efforts will be managed at the state level or below."
"We believe that if we are willing to give a foreign military commander tactical operational control of United States forces, then we think maybe the governors of our country should be able to, too," Commissioner J. Stanton Thompson said at the Feb. 7 DEF forum. He is a retired Navy rear admiral and former special assistant for Reserve matters to the commander at NORTHCOM and North American Aerospace Defense Command.
DoD rejected the Commission's recommendation in an interim report last year to develop protocols that would allow governors to direct federal military assets in time of emergencies. But DoD offered "no viable substitute," the Commision's final report says, and "places the nation at risk of a disjointed federal and state military response to a catastrophe."
"We're not talking administrative control," said Commissioner Sherrard. "We're talking truly tactical control and operational control. It's so we have unity of command: we don't have two people trying to do the same job, one not knowing what the other is doing."
Back to top of page
Personnel Management
DoD's current personnel management policies and mechanisms are "crude tools" designed during the middle of the last century, the Commission report says. Not only have technology and security issues changed, so has the workforce and individuals' expectations about career paths and mobility.
The Commission delved into the concept of "continuum of service" long proposed by ROA Executive Director LtGen Dennis McCarthy, USMC (Ret.). This concept sees servicemembers seamlessly transitioning among active, reserve, and civilian status over the course of a lifetime to fulfill both the individual's career aspirations and the nation's short-term and long-term national security needs. The Commission not only endorsed this concept with concrete recommendations, it called for "two critical enablers": the reduction of Reserve duty status categories, and integration of pay and personnel systems.
The Commission viewed such reform in the context of workplace trends across the country. "We see a much more flexible workforce of the future to be appealing to the millennial generation that's going to be serving in our military," Commissioner Patricia L. Lewis said at the Mid-Winter forum. Commissioner Lewis has served more than 28 years with the federal government, including long service with the Senate Armed Services Committee and at DoD. "These new challenges in recruiting and managing and retaining a highly skilled and mobile workforce of the future demand integrated total force management." Sustaining an operational reserve also requires integrated force management, she said. "You can't have one without the other in our view." This would mean, eventually, an integrated promotion system, an integrated compensation system, and an integrated retirement system.
Calling the current 29 duty-status categories a "Byzantine duty-status structure" that causes confusion among members and commanders, as well as pay and benefit hiccups, the Commission recommends cutting the number of duty statuses to just two: on duty and off duty. "All reserve duty will be considered active duty, with appropriate pay and other compensation," including drills, the report says. The report calls for a "day's pay ... for a day's work." While that mathematically would mean reduced pay for drill weekends, the report specifically says this overhaul should be made without reducing compensation for current servicemembers.
"I want to make crystal clear that our report in no way recommends reduction in pay or retirement credit," Commissioner Lewis said. "We thought it made sense to move away from the current drill pay structure and replace it with a system of pay and allowances much more like that of our Active force," including such compensation as basic allowance for housing, regardless of length of active duty service. The panel further set a timeline for such a change: DoD should develop a plan by 2010 and implement it by 2013.
The Commission attacks the "up or out" standard for promotions as a Cold War relic, invariably depriving the armed forces of skilled, experienced, and dedicated members who didn't "punch specific tickets at specific points in their careers." Rather, the Commission recommends a "perform or out" philosophy that not only allows servicemembers to further hone skills, gain more education, and attend to family situations as needed, but also help prevent stagnation across the force.
"Not everybody needs to be the wing commander or the squadron commander or the battalion commander," Commissioner Stockton said. "Some people would be very satisfied to be a pilot for 30 years, or a tank commander, or a maintenance person who has pride in maintaining the airplanes or helicopters in that unit. So, instead of thinking just time only, we think it's much more important to think about competency-based promotion criteria. That's how we should promote people, find ways to keep people longer in their careers if they want to, and also meet the needs of the service."
The Commission also recommended a single retirement system for all components based on annuities. It would set the age for retirement annuity at 62 for 10 years of service, 60 for 20 years of service, and 57 for 30 years of service. "For Reserve Component members, retired pay would continue to be calculated on the number of creditable retirement years, based on earning at least 50 retirement points per creditable year," the panel recommends. The Commission also recommended that DoD set up a thrift savings plan, provisions for earlier vesting, and "gate pay" in the form of bonuses at pivotal years of service.
"Clearly, this is an area of great sensitivity, and we recommend a transition and evaluation period to indicate the level of interest and acceptance of these sorts of changes before such a program would become mandatory," Commissioner Lewis said.
Back to top of page
Operational Readiness
In developing and justifying budgets for various programs, DoD "does not program or budget to meet the needs of a ready, capable, and available operational reserve," the Commission said. Further, the panel found little consistency in assessing the readiness of Reserve Components among the services, particularly as it pertains to capability to perform homeland missions.
The Commission not only recommends full funding for readiness of an operational reserve and operational reservists, it also recommends that the secretary of defense "should mandate that future programming decisions and budget requests be linked to the delivery of desired outcomes," and that senior leaders at service headquarters and commands "be held accountable for the readiness and performance of Reserve and National Guard units within their purview."
Improved readiness will mean more training than the traditional 39 days per year to meet force generation model standards, the panel said, and that also means better resources for training. The panel also issued five separate recommendations overhauling the Reserve Components' full-time support programs.
On the matter of jointness, the Commission noted that Reserve Component members currently don't have access-whether by law, policy, or practice-to joint senior leadership positions, a loss not only for Reserve and Guard members, but also for the total force that is missing out on the specific military- and civilian-formed leadership skills of such members. Seven of the panel's recommendations-with a further subset of eight recommendations among those seven-plot goals and methods for improving joint qualification among the Reserve Components.
Improved readiness also means better equipment. Despite recent legislative and service efforts to increase equipment funding for Reserve Components, "existing equipping strategies and budgets for equipment are inadequate to sustain an operational reserve," the report says. Particularly in the Army, "the Army's plans to modernize and equip its Reserve Components are unrealistic in light of plans to increase Active Component end-strength, prior unfulfilled plans to equip its Reserve Components, and requirements associated with transformation initiatives," the report says. Furthermore, Army material development, acquisition, and modernization usually doesn't include the Reserve Components. "For example, the Army has not programmed to provide the Army National Guard with its multi-billion-dollar Future Combat System."
Recommendations include not only fuller funding and better planning, but also a reform in the way equipment funds are tracked from procurement to delivery.
Individual medical readiness also gets a set of recommendations from the Commission, which wants standards established, responsibility for meeting those standards placed in the hands of Guard and Reserve unit commanders, and greater access to ongoing medical and dental care for Reserve Component members.
Back to top of page
Families and Employers
Under the heading of "Health Care," the Commission looked at three entities: Tricare, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), and stipends or tax credits for continuity of employer coverage. The panel recommended simplification of Tricare processes, not only to benefit "suddenly military" families but also to encourage more providers to participate. The Commission also broached the possibility of using the FEHBP, recommending that Congress amend the law to permit Reserve Component members to use that as an option under DoD's management.
A stipend or tax credit for continuing employer health-care coverage of Reserve Component families, meanwhile, would be both a family benefit and an employer carrot. "In the Commission's view, payment of a stipend would do more than give families an important benefit: it would constitute a major element of an enhanced compact with employers whose continued support, like that of families, is essential to recruiting and retaining top-quality young men and women in the National Guard and Reserves," the report said.
The Commission devoted a whole section to "establishing a compact with employers." "Like families, employers have a major influence on whether Reservists continue their Reserve participation and on the level of that participation," the report says, noting that higher operational tempo has "caused a strain in relations between employers and DoD." The report broaches the idea of a quid pro quo contract involving DoD, the Reservist, and the employer, similar to those used by the United Kingdom and other allies, whereby employers, including self-employed Reservists, would get some form of compensation for the absence of the Reserve employee.
Among its five recommendations in this section, the panel proposes expanding both the role, size, and authority of DoD's National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve; establishing an employer advisory council to meet regularly with the secretary of defense; making better use of the Small Business Administration programs; and suggesting a presidential directive to truly make the federal government a model employer in handling Reserve Component employees.
The Commission looked at the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act (USERRA) and found that while it was a strategic-reserve-era rewrite of a World War II law, its provisions meld neatly with the realities of an operational reserve. The panel did recommend some tweaking in the law concerning employers' rights to documentation of service and availability of employer-based health-care plans. It also suggested that a single entity be responsible for overseeing the entire USERRA complaint resolution process that is now divided among DoD, the Departments of Labor and Justice, and the Office of Special Counsel.
Eight recommendations cover demobilization and transition assistance, as the Commission reaped the work of other commissions and studies covering such issues as medical care, dental care, and, especially, the mental health of Reserve Component members returning from deployments. The recommendations range from the president establishing a cabinet-level task force to oversee implementation of Wounded Warrior Act provisions, to individual units resuming monthly drills immediately after demobilization, with the first drill focused on reintegration issues.
Back to top of page
Total Force Integration
Noting that 168 pieces of legislation pertaining to the Reserve Components have become law since 2002, the Commission called these "a patchwork of incremental changes that mend problems at the margins-they are not bold and systemic reforms designed to address the needs of the Reserve Components today and in the future." Rather, the nation needs to "reorder the priorities of the Department of Defense" with accompanying major restructuring of laws and budgets, the report said. The Commission also addressed the cultural divide between Active and Reserve Components, with recommendations as overarching as the secretary of defense developing a new Total Force Integration Policy, as simple as removing Reserve designations from "all titles, signature blocks, and unit designators," and as incisive as Congress modifying Title 10 to allow Reserve officers to serve on Boards of Inquiry for Active officers.
"Certainly we know there has been a lot of talk about integration for a long time," Commissioner Stockton said, "but we believe, on the Commission, that we've got a long way to go yet to fully integrating the Active and Reserve Components. The integration has to be all the way through everything, and it has to be seamless."
Indeed, the report concludes with recommendations changing the Pentagon's superstructure. Recommendation 94 calls for Congress to place the directors of the Army National Guard and Air National Guard on the Army and Air Force staffs, respectively, and giving them dual-reporting responsibilities to their respective chiefs of staff and to the chief of the National Guard Bureau. This would better align the statutory authorities and responsibilities of the secretaries of the Army and Air Force in achieving national security objectives, the report says.
Recommendation 95 calls for elimination of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs. The Commission believes that office's isolation inhibits total force integration, interferes with the legal mandate of the service secretaries and chiefs to manage their Reserve Components, and has "exacerbated a tendency within the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff to deal with Reserve Component issues on a separate, stovepiped path." In recommending disbanding Reserve Affairs as a separate office, though, the Commission wants assurances that the responsibilities of the office be integrated into other DoD entities and that "personnel working on Reserve issues hold rank and have responsibilities commensurate with those of their counterparts who handle Active Component issues."
"We just feel like a separate assistant secretary of defense for Reserve affairs flies in the face of our total force integration effort," Commissioner Thompson said.
Previous Page
Back to top of page |
