How is it determined which National Guard units get deployed overseas during military conflict? In particular, how is it decided which state’s National Guard goes over?
Thanks,
There’s different kinds of mobilization by law. In WWII we began Total Mobilization even before Pearl Harbor. I’m not sure if the National Guard mobiization started under Total Mobilization or was still under Full Mobilization. In both those situations the answer’s pretty easy. Almost everyone mobilizes. There are Table of Distribution and Allowances (TDA) units that are generally exempt. A prime example would be the JFHQ (Joint Force Headquarters) in each state that supervises the National Guard, both Army and Air Force, and any other state troops for the Governor.
Post 9-11 the use of the National Guard for deployment has overwhelmingly fallen under the President’s Partial Mobilization authority. There is regular reporting about unit readiness. It can be as simple as DOD selecting units that they want from the centralized data available and publishing orders specifying which unit(s) they want by Unit Identification Code. Orders are orders.
The practice was actually more involved. I spent about six months prepping two non-standard units for deployment and sat at a workstation in my state’s JFHQ in late 2006 through early 2007. Specifically, I sat in the G3 (Operations and Training) section’s area. Some of my coworkers were involved in what actually happened behind the scenes to select units. There was a biannual (IIRC) conference with reps from each state’s JFHQ. It effectively became a negotiation where state’s worked to create a solution that met all the upcoming mobilization requirements without undue hardship. There was both some volunteerism and some pushback over issues like being able to meet state disaster response needs. ISTR a coworker grumbling about some state’s that seemed to routinely try to carry less than their share of the load. At the end of the messy process an order was still published. The order development was just more collaborative than required by law.
Depends on what is needed. Certain states have more of certain type units. In years past my state had a very heavy Armor presence. Now it’s more combat engineer and light infantry. In short term, short lead time missions what is needed is what is taken.
About ten years ago when current operations slowed down it was recognized that Guard units were being overused. Their families and civilian careers were not sent up to handle random deployments that would last up to 2 years. Deployments were shortened to no more than a year at a time and a rotation was set up. After a years deployment you would have a reset year we’re you would not deploy. Then in subsequent years training would ramp up to get units ready to deploy. Deployment years were scheduled for every 5 years. When deployment year came up it would depend on the current world situation as to how many in the state would deploy. It wasn’t guaranteed that everyone or anyone would deploy.
I last deployed in 2009-2010. When our deployment year came around in 2014 very few people had to deploy. I retired in 2016. Right now large portions of the New Jersey Guard including my old unit are deployed again.
That’s a long winded way of saying they have set up a five year rotation schedule by state. But if something happens like North Korea blows up that goes out the window and start packing your bags.
Very informative, thanks.
“Volunteerism” was mentioned as one way of determining which states’ units will go over. I can see this from two perspectives and that’s part of what I was getting at in my OP in the first place.
What would motivate such volunteerism by state leadership? Is it patriotism pure and simple? I suppose that, politically, it could be advantageous simply to be seen as patriotic. Is there any feasible economic benefit to the state as well?