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Is this really news? U.S. National Guard and Reserve forces are unprepared

Stop the presses!

Actually, I worked at a newspaper for seven years and never ONCE heard anyone come into the newsroom shouting that we should stop the presses, but I've always wanted to say that.

Seriously, this news item about the terrible vulnerability of our National Guard and Reserve forces is bad news -- but it really shouldn't come as a surprise. The facts aren't that hard to put together: We have an all-volunteer military stretched to its limits by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have a military budget focused mostly on the same two areas of conflict.

A bigger surprise would be if the commission studying the Guard and Reserves had NOT found us inadequately prepared. The big question would be: What are we going to do about it?

The commission recommends giving governors "the authority to direct active-duty troops responding to emergencies in their states." That idea was criticized by Secretary of Defense Gates when it first came up a year ago, according to yesterday's report. The report also said the Pentagon is working on a solution now which would involve specialized, trained forces who could be ready to respond to national emergency needs.

Yeah, right. I may not have this just right, but it seems to me the Pentagon is saying something like this: "The National Guard and Reserves forces are inadequately prepared, so we're going to put together a sort of "mini-Guard/Reserves" group which will be adequately prepared."

Ah, well, what do I know? I'm just a guy who reads the papers.
[tags]National Guard, military Reserves, inadequate military forces, just a guy who reads the papers[/tags]