COLUMN ONE : In Defense of 2nd Line Defenders : As the National Guard and reserves are targeted for cutbacks, they demonstrate their lobbying clout--one that makes the gun lobby ‘look like amateurs.’

When National Guardsmen of the local 786th Transportation Company returned last May from four months’ duty with Operation Desert Storm, they got a hero’s welcome. Residents of this closely knit community of 2,700 lined the streets to cheer their arrival. There was a big parade down Archusa Street. Townspeople fawned over them for weeks.

But the euphoria evaporated in August, when word came from Washington that the 786th was about to be disbanded--part of a prewar push by the Bush Administration to continue shrinking the defense budget. The jolt sent the town into shock. Many members of the 786th felt betrayed.

“It seemed like they were kind of using us to get the best out of the unit, and then got rid of it,” says Sgt. Edward T. Minella, a paramedic for the local ambulance service who received a Bronze Star for his efforts in Desert Storm. “We all felt kind of let down.”

They didn’t stay down for long. Residents of Quitman launched a communitywide mobilization that rivaled the Gulf War call-up of the 786th. Aided by local guardsmen, the city’s officials and business leaders launched an intensive lobbying effort to block the cuts. Townspeople signed dozens of petitions. Hundreds wrote letters, particularly to Rep. G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery (D-Miss.), the area’s congressman.

Three months later, the 786th won a temporary reprieve. Montgomery, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, and other Guard proponents in Congress pushed through a limit on overall reductions in the force structure that will make it more difficult for the Administration to close reserve units this year.

But the skirmish isn’t over. Later this month, the Pentagon is slated to publish an updated “hit list” that once again is expected to target the 786th. And the broader battle--over how big a role the National Guard and reserves should play in the post-Cold War world--threatens to be a major factor in the debate over defense spending cuts.

The Administration contends that the reserves should be pared back commensurately with the regular Army. It wants to trim four of the 10 Army Reserve and National Guard divisions and scrap 29,000 reserve slots that the Pentagon tried to eliminate last year. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney says the cuts would save $20 billion over five years.

But Congress, which has turned down such reductions for three years in a row, seems unlikely to go along. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) has indicated he will seek smaller cuts in reserve forces than Cheney would like, and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) seems certain to retain even more.

What’s more, analysts expect a solid majority in both houses to back them up.

The reaction in Quitman--and the repeated refusal by Congress to approve the Administration’s proposed cuts--illustrate a stark reality: For all their complaining about being mistreated, the 1.3-million-member Guard and reserves exercise stunning political power and influence, both among state and local governments and in the power centers of Washington.

Over the past 40 years, the two entities--led by the National Guard Assn. and the Reserve Officers Assn.--have built up broad grass-roots support and a strong, well-organized lobby that “makes the gun lobby led by the National Rifle Assn. look like amateurs,” in the words of Martin Binkin, a Brookings Institution expert on defense manpower.

Champions on the Hill

Their champions in Congress are unabashed about defending the reservists’ interests. In the House, Quitman’s Montgomery has become Mr. National Guard, leading every charge to maintain current strength levels and to promote the role of the Guard and reserves. In the Senate, Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.) are visibly out in front.

The pro-Guard forces also have a Stealth weapon--the Senate National Guard Caucus. The group, which comprises 69 senators, keeps such a low profile that it is barely known outside official circles. But it gets results. Last year, when the organization drafted a letter to protest cutbacks in reserve forces, an impressive 54 senators--a clear majority--signed.

To many observers, the real power of the reserves lies in the interlocking relationships between the Guard and its home states. Lobbying expert Martha Derthick describes it as an “intricate and subtle political chain that laces the country, running through village council rooms, county courthouses and state capitals to Congress and the White House.”

Montgomery is a retired major general in the Army National Guard. Ten other members of the House and Senate are officers of the Guard or reserves. And state and local governments boast bevies of key officials who either belong to the Guard or reserves themselves, or have friends or family members who are active or retired guardsmen.

At one point in the early 1970s, 108 senators and congressmen held such memberships--including congressional big guns such as Sens. Leverett Saltonstall (R-Mass.) and Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), and Reps. Carl Vinson (D-Ga.), F. Edward Hebert (D-La.) and L. Mendel Rivers (D-S.C.), all chairmen or senior members of the armed services committees.

In Quitman, the list of current or former guardsmen includes Billy Ray Evans, the Clarke County sheriff; Ralph Boykin, a member of the board of supervisors; Billy Ford, manager of emergency services; and Mack Stevens, vice president of the local bank.

And the 786th’s roster includes ordinary citizens and their relatives--policemen, businessmen, offshore oil drillers, waitresses and paramedics--from almost every part of the community’s social stratum. “The Guard unit is family,” says Quitman Mayor Samuel E. Box, a retired industrial supplies salesman who is lobbying to keep the unit intact.

In many small communities, it also is big business. Although Quitman has a few factories that employ more people than the Guard, the $600,000 payroll that the 786th disburses each year has a major effect on the county’s economy. “We can’t afford to lose it,” Box laments. “It would really depress this area.”

While most guardsmen earn their living from full-time civilian jobs, the pay they get for drills--and two weeks’ training every summer--often makes the difference between simply eking by and being able to live better. Guard members traditionally get two days’ pay for each day worked.

Thomas Pickens, a 38-year-old divorced father of three who says he normally earns about $30,000 a year in his civilian job as an offshore oil worker, has financed his last two cars with his $201-a-month pay as a sergeant and an extra $900 from summer training. “I would have had to scrimp a lot more without it,” he concedes.

Guard units go out of their way to be seen as assets to their communities. Although the 786th’s yellow-and-brick-red armory was built to house weapons and petroleum pumping equipment, it also serves as the city’s community center--for high school proms, charity dances, Boy Scout meetings and blood drives.

The Guard also earns community gratitude by carrying out state-ordered functions, such as rescuing flood victims and restoring order following civil disturbances (except in time of war, the Guard is controlled by governors). And guardsmen always seem to be available for building floats for the homecoming parade and for service as color guards and funeral escorts.

“I do not turn down a military funeral,” declares Guard Maj. Billy L. Pierce, commander of the field artillery unit that is based in nearby Newton. “It pays off.”

Gathering Support

Indeed, the Guard is continually conscious of building grass-roots support. At least once a year, Pierce’s unit invites family members, civic leaders and elected officials to a “Family Day” outing at nearby Camp Shelby, where Guard units in the area train. He had a C-141 transport ready for a similar trip to Ft. Hood, Tex., when Desert Storm intervened.

Over the past few years, Montgomery and other pro-Guard lawmakers have been able to fend off any serious cuts in troop strength for the Guard and reserves while at the same time sharply increasing federal financing and special benefits for Guard units and members.

In the early 1970s, for example, Montgomery led a move to set up a separate procurement fund for Guard and reserve units (the Guard had been complaining that it was receiving hand-me-downs from the regular Army, rather than modern weapons). The kitty has since been expanded to almost $2 billion a year.

A few years later, he pushed through legislation to block governors of the 50 states from refusing to send Guard units abroad for training merely for political reasons, as some did in the case of Central America. Still another Montgomery-sponsored measure extended GI education benefits to guardsmen.

And last year, Montgomery led a House move to protect the Guard and reserves from any cuts at all. When that proved too difficult, he settled for a “compromise” that provided for completion of an independent study on the proper role of the Guard and reserves. Both groups now argue the Pentagon should wait for the results before moving any further.

“I admit my amendment went too far; it’s overkill,” he told a reporter then, with mock contrition.

Clout vs. Criticism

Seated in an office that is cluttered with appreciation plaques from the Guard and reserves, Montgomery makes no bones about where his loyalties lie. “The Army for some reason wants to bring down the National Guard,” he says. “There’s not any reasonableness to it. They ought to be out there running the Army, instead of just fighting with me.”

Not surprisingly, such uncompromising dedication has brought some rewards for Montgomery as well. At the National Guard Assn.’s new headquarters in Washington, there is a G.V. Montgomery Executive Council Chamber.

And in Meridian, Miss., outsized white letters on the side of a military helicopter hangar proclaim that a visitor is looking at the G.V. Montgomery National Guard Complex. While local guardsmen don’t campaign as a unit, “everybody here knows Sonny,” a Guard official says pointedly.

Such enviable political clout comes despite continual criticism of the Guard and reserves, both from the Pentagon and from critics in and out of government--including Congress’ own investigative arm, the General Accounting Office--that Guard and reserve units aren’t always adequately trained and up to the job.

Army brass found so many serious shortcomings in the combat reserves and Guard units that were called up for training before Operation Desert Storm that they balked at sending any of them to the front. The Pentagon is removing them from the list of rapid-deployment “contingency” forces designed to be dispatched to any future military hot spot.

Even so, many military analysts regard the overall Guard and reserve performance in the Persian Gulf as a success story, at least by historical standards. Brookings’ Binkin, for example, notes that the reserve units that were called up mobilized quickly and efficiently, without any of the overt grumbling that had characterized their performance in previous wars.

And he blames part of the Guard’s apparent shortcomings in the Gulf War on the Pentagon, which held back on sending infantry units with their active-duty counterparts. Had the Army decided to risk such deployment, Binkin says, “we would now be heaping all kinds of glory on the round-out concept and arguing for increased dependence on the Guard for added capability.”

The debate over the Guard and reserves primarily involves combat ground forces. The Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve have been immune from most criticism, primarily because the regular Air Force has taken pains to integrate them into its operations. And the Navy and Marine Corps reserves don’t involve huge units, and are easier to handle.

Still, whatever their failings, today’s Guard and reserves are far more proficient--and better equipped--than any of their recent predecessors. During much of the 1960s and 1970s, the Guard was viewed as a gentleman’s way to avoid the draft, while the reserves languished as stepchildren of the active-duty forces. Performance--and morale--both were dismal.

That changed after 1973, when the United States, finally ending the Vietnam War, abolished the draft and turned to a new “Total Force” concept that sought to integrate the Guard and reserves with the active-duty forces. With a new all-volunteer army, the United States would place greater reliance on the Guard and reserves.

In the mid-1980s, Pentagon planners came up with the “Roundout” concept, designed to heighten the role of the Guard and reserves. In six experimental units, specific portions of the combat role would be allocated to Guard and reserve units so that the division couldn’t perform unless the Guard and reserves were mobilized. Desert Storm was its first real test.

Not surprisingly, demand for cutbacks in defense spending have revived longstanding animosities between the regular Army and the Guard and reserves, which have had little use for one another since the modern-day Guard was formed. “It’s no secret that active-duty officers do not have much respect for their National Guard counterparts,” Binkin says.

Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argues that with the threat of a full-fledged war against Warsaw Pact forces now much reduced, “retaining (Guard and) Army reserve forces at previous levels . . . makes no sense strategically or fiscally,” and that the new threat--of a quick-to-start Desert Storm-type action--requires active forces.

But the Guard and reserves argue that the possibility of a hard-line resurgence in the former Soviet Union hasn’t fully disappeared, and they contend that reserves can provide the backup less expensively.

The Heat of Battle

The battle clearly is heating up. Earlier this month, Powell warned acidly that lawmakers were beginning to cloak the Guard and reserves with the same sort of protection against budget-cutting that welfare and Social Security programs now have.

“If that’s going to become an entitlement program (that) we can’t reduce anymore, so be it,” Powell said, “but from the standpoint of military strategy . . . we are trying to bring the reserves back down to a responsible level. . . . Otherwise we will badly unbalance the force.”

Binkin--along with many other serious defense analysts--agrees. “It makes no sense to say, ‘You can have active duty cuts but no reserve cuts unless you have a plan for how to use these people,” he contends. “The price that’s going to be paid for this is a distorted force structure.”

Partly to deflect some of the criticism, the National Guard Assn. has come up with a force-structure proposal of its own that would set both active and reserve forces at the equivalent of 10 divisions each--less favorable to the regular Army than the Bush Administration’s plan but more generous to the Pentagon than Aspin’s initial proposal.

But while Aspin and some others may debate such broad-brush policy issues, they aren’t necessarily going to be the deciding factor in Congress’ debate this year. Defense analysts concede that many lawmakers will cast their votes based more on their constituents’ fears about losing local Guard units than on strategic considerations.

Sgt. Minella in Quitman says he isn’t taking any chances. He will be back at his kitchen table this weekend, writing his congressman once again.

Targeting the Guard and Reserve

Alternative plans for cutting the size of the active-duty Army and the Army National Guard and Army Reserve--as proposed by the Bush Administration, by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) and by the National Guard Assn. Chart shows divisions or brigades left after the cuts.

Active Guard, Army Reserve Cadre* Roundout** Divisions Divisions Divisions Brigades Existing forces 16 10 0 6 Bush plan 12 6 2 6 Aspin plan 9 6 0 Uncertain Nat’l Guard Assn. 10 10 0 6

*Cadre units would be skeleton forces operated by small groups of officers and senior enlisted personnel, designed to be filled out during times of mobilization.

**Roundout brigades are reserve and Guard units with combat roles essential to active duty units.

Sources: Defense Department, House Armed Services Committee, National Guard Assn.

Reserves and Guard: How They Differ

The reserves and National Guard are regarded as a single entity by most budget planners, but they differ markedly both in mission and in makeup. Here’s a primer: SIZE AND STRUCTURE Reserves: Components of the regular Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Members are civilians but are eligible for call-up, either as individuals or as part of organized units, to replace or supplement active-duty personnel. The breakdown: 309,700 Army, 151,500 Navy, 84,500 Air Force and 44,900 Marine. Guard: Effectively 50 state militias. Units report to their state governors during peacetime but can be mobilized to become part of the regular Army (or Air Force) during war or national emergency. The Guard comprises only Army and Air Force units. The breakdown: 446,100 in the Army National Guard, 117,800 in the Air National Guard. MISSION Reserves: To supplement and replace regular Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines during time of war or national emergency. Usually used primarily for support functions--such as transportation and military police--rather than for combat. Guard: During peacetime, guardsmen are used by state governors for a variety of civil functions, from quelling riots and rescuing flood victims to flying state dignitaries to various destinations. During a war or national emergency, they can be mobilized into the regular Army or Air Force and sent into combat or support missions. DRILLS AND PAY Reserves and Guard: Personnel in the “selective” category--those most likely to be called up--train for one weekend a month and for at least one 15-day period a year. They are paid at regular military pay scales, but receive two days’ pay for every one they spend in training. SHARE OF THE PENTAGON’S BUDGET National Guard and Reserves: *6.5% How the 6.5% breaks down: Army Reserve: 1.2% Navy Reserve: 0.9% Air Force Reserve: 0.7% Marine Reserve: 0.2% Army National Guard: 2% Air National Guard: 1.5% *Outlays for operation and procurement only. Actual spending for cost of maintaining units is significantly higher.

Sources: Department of Defense, Brookings Institution, Defense Budget Project