Our nation’s National Guard and Reserve units play a critical role in our nation’s defense. However, their contributions are often overlooked by the civilian population. Retired Major General Ted Maxwell, former commander of the Arizona Air National Guard joins us for a conversation.
While all our military branches except the Space Force have a reserve component, the National Guard only includes Army and Air Force units. The Guard comprises 38% of our total uniformed manpower with 432,460 members. Standing alone, they would be the world’s 11th largest army and fifth largest air force.
Ted shares some of the differentiating factors between the National Guard and the Reserves. The Guard traces its history back to December 13, 1636, when the Massachusetts Bay colony formed three regiments. Soon the other colonies also formed militias. As such, when members of the National Guard take their oath, they are swearing allegiance to both their Governor and the President of the US. Reservists serve at the pleasure of the President.
Because they report to Governors, the Guard can also be used for domestic missions in support of natural disasters, etc. The Air National Guard is also principally responsible for domestic air defense.
Limitations to the strategy of using Guardsmen to fill active-duty slots appeared during the first Gulf War when Ted says “We had a lot of airline pilots flying F-16’s”. The extended and repeat deployments created real strains for our “citizen airmen”.
Ted shares some stories about his time deployed in Iraq and his amazement at the number of pilots who were Guardsmen and Reservists. In 2005 over half of the combat brigades deployed in Iraq came from the Army National Guard.
TAKEAWAY: “The number one recruiting source for the Guard and Reserve are former active-duty members. They are already coming to us highly trained.”