$1.2 Bil in Guard Gear, Gone
Oy. Somehow I missed this bit of good news from last week: "The Army National Guard estimates that its units left over 64,000 items valued at over $1.2 billion overseas. However, the Army cannot account for over half of these items and does not have a plan to replace them," the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigatory arm, said in a report last week.
The Army talking point for a while now has been that National Guard and Reserve units get treated just as well as regular Joes. And, in many cases, that's true. But it's hard to imagine active duty units being allowed to piss away $600 million worth of trucks and radios and NVGs. According to the GAO, guard units had anywhere from 65 to 79 percent of their "required war-time items" before 2001. These days, "nondeployed Guard units now have only about one-third of the equipment they need for their overseas missions, which hampers their ability to prepare for future missions and conduct domestic operations."
Obviously, the priority has got to be put on the fellas in the field. But, still. The guard obviously has some pretty serious responsibilities at home. And given how often these guys are deploying, they need to be able to train to fight.
(Big ups: Defense News)
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The report did not say that the equipment is missing or lost...
What the report said was that the Army has no plan to return or replace equipment that remains in theater to support other units. They are required by law to produce this plan and have not done so.
Posted by: Todd at November 3, 2005 09:42 AM