National Guard Now Used as Auxiliary Fighting Force

The U.S. National Guard has played an active part in such foreign operations as the raid on Libya and the invasion of Grenada, according to official sources. These are not the sort of actions associated with a home-grown militia created to protect U.S. borders against foreign invasion or deal with such emergencies as floods, tornadoes and civil unrest.

But over the past 10 years the National Guard has taken on a surprising new identity. In 1986, more than 42,000 National Guardsmen are scheduled to go on training missions in 46 foreign countries, some of questionable legality.

According to the National Guard Bureau, a crew of eight Air National Guardsmen from Washington state took part in the raid on Libya--refueling aircraft used in the operation from a tanker over the Atlantic, while they were officially on a three-week “training mission” in Morocco. Another crew, this one from Arkansas, participated in the Grenada operation, also while on a “training mission.” Five other guardsmen from Arkansas went to Chile in August, 1985, for “Operation Pegasus,” a joint command-post exercise with the Chilean military, which has been barred from receiving U.S. military aid because of the country’s human rights record.

Most public controversy surrounding the overseas training activities has focused on Honduras, where the Guard has been involved in exercises since 1981. A total of 5,200 National Guardsmen from 23 states will have gone to Honduras on training missions this year. Governors of at least 12 states, including California, Ohio and New York, have questioned the need to train guardsmen in volatile areas.

In some cases, however, governors are misled regarding their troops’ destination. Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, for example, had authorized his state troops to take part in “regular NATO exercises and training.” But Chile, located along the Pacific, is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “I was not aware that Chile was part of the package approved,” Clinton said, when a reporter told him that Arkansas guardsmen took part in joint exercises there. Within hours after he had been informed of the year-old mission, Clinton stated, “That approval has been withdrawn.”

Washington state Gov. Booth Gardner did not have prior knowledge of his state Air National Guard’s deployment in the Libya bombing. “Each time we send National Guard troops on a training mission,” Gardner said, “they are potentially in some kind of danger. This appears to be no different.”

Gardner’s press secretary, Richard Milnes, reported that the state military commander, Adjutant Gen. Keith Eggen, told the governor’s office on Thursday that the guardsman, “were on standby and did not participate in any active capacity.” But the Pentagon’s National Guard Bureau said the Washington state guardsman were “not on standby, they were active.”

The confrontation between the governors and the Administration began early this year, when Gov. Joseph E. Brennan of Maine refused to authorize 35 combat engineers from his National Guard to participate in maneuvers in Honduras. This triggered a dramatic response from the Pentagon. Under current U.S. law, the Guard “may not be ordered to active duty without the consent of the governor”--except in war or a national emergency. “Active duty” has been interpreted as training outside the United States.

Following Brennan’s action--the first time in memory a governor has blocked such a mission--the Pentagon requested that Congress pass legislation removing the need for a governor’s consent, and giving the Administration jurisdiction over National Guard overseas training. The Senate Subcommittee on Manpower and Personnel of the Armed Services Committee held hearings July 16.

Subcommittee members Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) and Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) drafted a bill on the Pentagon’s behalf, and they are expected to introduce it as one of more than 100 proposed amendments to the Defense Authorization bill now on the Senate floor. Rep. G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery (R-Miss.) presented the bill on the House side. It is still uncertain whether the votes will take place before the Aug. 16 recess.

The debate poses urgent questions about the National Guard’s role in military and foreign policy concerns. The National Guard was organized in 1792, under the first Militia Act. State militias were often stubbornly anti-federal; in 1813, governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut refused the President’s mobilization call to repel the British. The state militias considered themselves a domestic force and did not send troops to the 1846 war with Mexico or the Spanish-American War in 1898. But a new era dawned in 1903, when the Dick Act first assigned federal funding to militias.

Legislation passed in 1933 gave the Guard a “dual status” as both a state and a federal institution; units were mobilized and sent overseas to fight in World War I, World War II and the Korean War. The clauses that now permit state governors to exercise their veto were instituted in 1952. Overseas training missions began in the 1960s, and the Mississippi National Guard went on “training missions” that consisted of flying supplies into Vietnam.

With the Total Force Doctrine, introduced in the early 1970s, the National Guard was recast as a vital partner of the active services. As Assistant Secretary of Defense James H. Webb told the Senate subcommittee on July 16, that at the beginning of the “volunteer environment,” the Pentagon planned an active force of three million personnel and 750,000 reservists. Those plans have been skewed toward greater emphasis on reserve units--now 1.2 million compared to 2 million on active duty. More than 90% of the National Guard budget comes from the U.S. Treasury; according to Webb, the Pentagon has spent close to $47 billion for equipment and training since 1981. In return, the Pentagon expects the Guard to serve as an auxiliary combat and support force, capable of instant response in a national emergency.

None of the dissenting governors challenge the principle of overseas training, nor do they question the need for preparedness. But they question the characterization of Guard activities in Honduras as “training,” asking why jungle training can’t be conducted in Panama and Florida, as it has been for 15 years. U.S. Army Col. William Comee, commander of Joint Task Force Bravo in Honduras, helped raise doubts about the policy by telling Oregon legislators that guardsmen were in Honduras to “intimidate and harass” Nicaragua. In addition, governors are under pressure from public opposition to the Administration’s Central America policies.

Gramm and Wilson argue that governors have no role in foreign policy, and should have no say in where their guardsmen are sent. Curiously, this position is challenged by the National Guard itself. Lt. Gen. E.H. Walker, chief of the National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon, told the Senate subcommittee that he felt satisfied with existing legal mechanisms. He objected to the proposed amendments on the grounds that they could prejudice relations between National Guard units and state governments. Walker also admitted that his original testimony questioned the constitutionality of the proposed legislation, and the Pentagon had censored his statement.

From the first, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger’s office pursued the change in legislation without consulting Walker, who only learned of Defense’s initiative during Senate Appropriations Committee hearings in late May. Walker aired his objections at the hearings. And two weeks later, Webb stated that Defense had indeed decided not to seek the legislation. But, in late June, Walker heard--from a reporter--that Weinberger had written to committee member Sen. Barry M. Goldwater (R-Ariz.), expressing continued support for the measure.

One high ranking Defense Department official summarized the dissenting position last week. “If you use the question of contra aid to measure public opinion,” he said, “the states that opposed sending National Guardsmen to Honduras are states where people oppose the Administration’s policy in Central America. The governors are representing the will of the people in this, and in a democracy that’s exactly what they should be doing.” Obviously, this attitude is not universal in the Pentagon; Walker, its most steadfast proponent, will be retiring on Aug. 19. (He will be replaced by Lt. Gen. Herbert Temple, a Weinberger recommendation.)

It would be regrettable if Congress decided such an important issue by passing a precipitous amendment tacked onto a bill before recess. Arguments about the safety of guardsmen in Honduras are not yet compelling--so far, the only recorded 1986 casualty was a Puerto Rican guardsman who shot himself in the finger. There are larger matters. If the Administration justifies deployment of National Guardsmen in the Grenada or Libya strikes by describing them as “training missions,” implications for U.S. policy in Central America could be grave.