California National Guard asks Pentagon to expand force after COVID-19, protest deployments
National Guard leaders in California and Washington state want the Defense Department to consider expanding the size of the force as troops are increasingly called upon to respond to the crises across the country.
The push comes as California prepares to double the number of National Guard service members deployed to administer COVID-19 shots to 2,500 in the coming weeks, California National Guard Adjutant General Maj. Gen. David Baldwin said Friday.
Over the past year, California has repeatedly relied on the state’s National Guard force of 18,000 to help with a dangerous annual wildfire season, protests over the racial injustice, COVID-19 and the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
It’s not looking like their activity will let up anytime soon. In addition to responding to the pandemic, more than 200 California National Guard troops remain in Washington, D.C. to assist with an unusual domestic terrorism threat issued by the FBI. And California’s wildfire season, which has already recorded 324 incidents since Jan. 1, is expected to again be severe due to climate change.
“It’s a big problem in California,” Baldwin said. “The bottom line is that our mission set continues to increase. The demand signal for the National Guard goes up and up.”
“To that end,” Baldwin said, “The Guard is not big enough and we need to grow.”
There are a total of 440,000 National Guard service members under the control of their states’ governors, compared to 1.3 million troops serving in the active duty military. But laws strictly limit what active duty forces that are under federal control can do on United States soil.
With very few exceptions, when there is a natural disaster, mass protests or COVID needs, it’s a state’s National Guard that responds.
That takes a toll. At the height of the nationwide response in June to protests and violence following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, about one in four National Guard service members was on active duty either supporting hurricane or wildfire response, responding to civil disturbance, assisting with COVID or deployed overseas.
“You know, it hasn’t just been a long year. It’s been a long 20 years,” said Maj. Gen. Bret Daugherty, adjutant general for the Washington National Guard. “We’re all consumed with our domestic operations right now, but it is simultaneous with our overseas deployments, which have not let up one iota.”
The state of Washington has 8,000 National Guard members. Assisting with responses to COVID, wildfires, civil unrest and cybersecurity threats during the presidential election involved approximately 60-65 % of the force, according to spokesman Maj. Joseph Siemandel.
“If we had a little bit more force structure, it wouldn’t be such a stretch for us to get all these missions accomplished,” Daugherty said.
For California, one of the challenges is that the size of the Guard is disproportional to the state’s population, Baldwin said. If it was proportional, he said California’s Guard would have 60,000 service members, not 18,000.
“It does put some measure of strain on us, especially as we try to preserve a significant amount of troops, availability for unforeseen contingencies, like if we have a major earthquake or a tsunami,” Baldwin said.
As Congress and the Pentagon goes through its annual budget process and review of the size of each military branch, the state Guard leaders said they hope that last year’s demand will prompt a discussion on the increasing needs at home.
“I hope that, as we have a tendency to kind of reevaluate how our Department of Defense is structured in the future, perhaps we can find a little bit more force structure for our National Guard,” Daugherty said. “Because that will take some of the burden off of our soldiers, airmen, families and employers.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2021 at 2:37 PM.
