Contact: Rob Ostrander 202.224.7627 Shana Stribling 202.224.0309
Thursday, April 20, 2006

ST. LOUIS, MO - U.S. Senator Kit Bond today met with members of the Missouri Air and Army Guard at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis to discuss his most recent efforts on behalf of the Guard and his plans to introduce legislation to further empower the Guard.

"We need to empower the National Guard. We need to give the Guard more bureaucratic muscle, so that the force will not be continually pushed around in policy and budget debates within the Pentagon," said Bond.

As co-chair of the Senate National Guard Caucus, Bond is a strong advocate for the nation’s citizen-soldiers. He recently testified at a hearing with the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves where Bond announced that he will introduce legislation to elevate and empower the Guard.

Bond’s legislation to strengthen the Guard would involve three central planks:

* Allow the National Guard Bureau to establish more formal relationships with the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

* Give the Guard more muscle in the existing relationships, elevating the Chief of the National Guard to a four-star position and adding the Chief to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

* Ensure that the Deputy Commander of U.S. Northern Command is a member of the National Guard.

Also, earlier this year, Bond led the Senate opposition to Army proposals to cut the National Guard. The Pentagon backtracked on their plans to scale back the Guard’s force structure after Bond organized broad opposition, more than 75 Senators, to the plan.

The National Guard has been a tremendous value for the capabilities it provides our nation, providing 40 percent of the total military force for around 4.5 percent of the budget, Bond pointed out. Now more than ever, as budgets are constrained and entitlements continue to grow at alarming rates, we should not be looking to reduce the Guard, but rather fully man and fully equip it, stressed Bond.

Our nation was reminded last year during the response to Hurricane Katrina of the importance of the Guard’s homeland defense and civil support mission, said Bond. Over 1300 Missouri Guardsmen were deployed in less than 72 hours and advanced staging teams and convoys were deployed in under 24 and 33 hours respectively. Medical, transportation, airlift, military police, engineering, and communications, are examples of just some of the capabilities Missouri’s Guardsmen provided during the disaster. The Guard’s successful response was attributable to the fact that the Guard is best organized and trained to initiate and coordinate a civil response to a disaster the scale of Katrina.

Despite the critical role the Guard will provide in the event of another terrorist attack or natural disaster, the Guard only has 35 percent of its required equipment levels. Last year Bond led successful efforts in the Senate to increase equipment funding for the National Guard by almost $1 billion and emphasized that he will continue this important fight again this year.