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Lieutenant General James: Thank you very much, and good morning. The message today is really the title of the presentation, “Air National Guard in the Forefront.” And the Air National Guard of course has been in the forefront and a lot of people don't know. One of our biggest challenges in the Air National Guard is telling our story, because people think that the Air National Guard just stays in the continental United States, it doesn't deploy, and so for that reason I spend a lot of time talking about what an integral part of our great Air Force the Air National Guard is.

Today we have over 106,000 people, men and women in the Air National Guard, and we're involved not only in Katrina relief but also in the global war on terrorism. I'll talk about our involvement in the relief effort in Hurricane Katrina, the global war on terrorism, our challenges lie as an organization in recruiting and retention, recapitalization (the same challenges that the Air Force as a whole feels), transformation, and our dual missioning.

Regarding the buildup of, as we call them, boots on the ground or forces, and these are National Guard forces we’re talking about in the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina. This effort starts somewhere around the 27th of August. If you look at the 27th, 28th and 29th, you will see that in fact the Air National Guard and the States in Florida and Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana had already started to activate or put on active duty their National Guard Soldiers and Airmen. There were some 5,000 Airmen and Soldiers on active duty prior to the actual hurricane hitting landfall.

One of the things that's important to understand is that the hurricane, although it missed the center of New Orleans, was not the only event. The major event came when the flood walls gave way, specifically the 17th Street flood wall collapsed or was overrun by water and finally gave in, and the levee behind that flood wall started to come apart. Then there was a breach of the levee itself. That 17th Street Canal is the one that actually flooded the city. You might remember that one of the reporters said that we had dodged a bullet because the hurricane has passed east of the city of New Orleans. In fact that's true. The devastation in Gulfport and Bay St. Louis and Biloxi was much more significant than the destruction that actually happened with the hurricane in New Orleans in and of itself. It was the flooding, the second event that occurred.

That event occurred about 3:00 o'clock in the morning. There was another breach around noon. And just after midnight the following day the third flood wall collapsed which pretty much told the story for the days to come.

I would like you and the American people to know that the National Guard was already on board. We had some 5,000 soldiers on the ground in those two States that were hit the hardest.

Within the first 24 hours of the flood wall breach, we brought in an additional 2,000 Soldiers. Then, within 48 hours, 5,000; and up to 12,000 within 79 hours. Within 96 hours we had 24,000 soldiers from neighboring States, States all across the country—50 states and two territories participated in this relief effort. That's a tremendous response to a national emergency and it was done primarily by Guard lift. Air National Guard C-130s flew those National Guard soldiers in.

Once the Chief of the National Guard Bureau visited and then subsequently the next day the President visited and saw the devastation and the amount of flooding, he saw fit to call in the active component—the 82nd Airborne and other brigades from the active Army to aid in the relief effort. The rescue was the first priority, primarily the rescue effort, evacuation, then resettlement of folks from the shelters into other States.

One of the things that you'll see in the press is a lot of criticism of the local government and the state government and so forth. What I will tell you is, because of the flooding it made it impossible for people to get to the people who were in need, so we had to use helicopters to evacuate most of the folks. Until the flood waters went down, or until we could get some high water transportation in there, we couldn't get those folks who were basically stranded at the high water mark in and around the Super Dome. It wasn't easy for us to drop in supplies either, because all of the dry spots where we would normally drop supplies people were inhabiting them because they had removed them from the Super Dome and pushed them over to the Convention Center itself.

So the good news story is yes, the Guard was there. The state government did not fail to respond. It's just that they were overwhelmed by the flooding itself.

Currently, we have 4,000 Air National Guard members working in support of the effort. Some are actually in the area, in Mississippi and Louisiana, and Louisiana is still the most challenged part of the relief effort.

The first Air National Guard airplane to arrive was a C-130 from the 137th Airlift Wing in Oklahoma City and it performed an aero-med evacuation of the New Orleans Veterans Hospital.

As you know, some of the nursing homes and hospitals were the hardest hit because most of the people that were there were really not that ambulatory, and so getting them out of the city early was probably the best thing that could happen.

During the next critical days we flew over 300 sorties a day, meeting 100 percent of our mission taskings. On the 3rd of September, the Air National Guard flew 153 sorties in support of the relief effort, as opposed to just less than a dozen by the active component Air Mobility Command.

When the story is told it will be told as a Total Force story, and it should be. We are a Total Force in the Air Force. Our cooperation between the reserve components—that being the Air National Guard and the Reserves—has always been done very well, and it continues to be because we are resourced at the same level as the active component. However, if you break the numbers out you'll see that the bulk of the airlift that was flown was in fact flown by the Air National Guard.

On another front, we're continuing to be challenged by the global war in terrorism. Our contribution to the global war on terror has been significant.

During 9/11 we mobilized 24,000 people. That was the peak. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, we mobilized over 20,000. We supported the combatant commander in every contingency, on every level, and we do this primarily with volunteerism. I'll get to this point later on, but volunteerism really is the backbone of the National Guard. Our National Guard members step forward and volunteer to fill commitments that we have been levied through the AEF and we're very proud of the volunteer spirit. But it's a very fragile entity and it must be monitored and cared for daily.

As of August of this year we've flown a total of almost 200,000 sorties in support of the ongoing operations in the global war on terrorism, including 83 percent of the fighter sorties flown in Operation Noble Eagle, which is the air sovereignty mission protecting the airspace over the United States. Sixty-three percent of those tanker sorties for Noble Eagle and 45 percent of the airlift sorties. The Air National Guard maintains 13 of the 14 air alert sites for Noble Eagle.

In Operation Enduring Freedom we contribute 25 percent of the tankers, 23 percent of the airlift, and 2 percent of the fighters, while in Operation Iraqi Freedom we contribute 70 percent of the fighter sorties, 10 percent of the tanker, and 17 percent of our airlift.

Our new steady state has almost tripled. We continue to increase our commitment, flying at an increasingly intensive rate since 1991. The percentage of Air National Guard aircraft participating in operations as part of the Total Force has more than tripled. We're currently providing over 35 percent of operational aircraft in support of current contingencies, so the new steady state, as you can see, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 percent.

What does this mean? This means that in fact the stress on families and relationships with the employers of our Guard and Reserve personnel will mount with the continued heavy vesting of participation in this new steady state.

Our challenges are recruiting and retention. In the past we've had the luxury of not having to recruit off of our installations. We've gone to some of the schools and some of the major events in the local area, however, and we've had the luxury of not having to have storefront recruiting stations in the community. We've had our recruiters basically stationed there on our bases and they've gone out to meet the public.

Well, you can imagine with the change in 9/11, with the heightened security, they can no longer get easy access to our bases, so we've had to change that.

Our retention rates remain very good. Our retention rates usually are about a percentage higher than what we forecast, but it's not enough to make up for the downturn in recruiting. A lot of people say that the reason for this is the war on terrorism and the fact that many of what we call the influencers—the parents, teachers, pastors, coaches and others—are discouraging folks from joining the military. I don't know whether that's true, but I do know that we're going to have to do a better job of recruiting.

This year we'll fall about 400 people short of our recruiting goal. Last year we fell about 200 people short. That was the first time we didn't meet our recruiting goal since 1996. As a result, we're going to have to increase the numbers of our recruiters. I've asked the Congress to add an additional 100 authorizations for our recruiters so we can have more active recruiting and also I've asked them to increase our training bonuses and make sure that all of our bonuses are level across the board.

When you look at the reserve components, you'll see that most of them have pretty strong bonus programs and our prior service people, because of the operations tempo that the Air National Guard and other reserve components are incurring, are not coming to the Guard and Reserves as they did in the past. So we're focusing on non-prior service people, those recruits that we can get to come and join us. And as you'll see in the days to come, a more active recruiting effort…

Just in comparison, if you look at the Air National Guard and you look at our brothers and sisters in the Army National Guard, you'll see that they're three times the size of the Air National Guard, approximately 350 soldiers. However, the Air Guard has about 400 recruiters and the Army has over 4,000. You'll see that their program for budget is about ten times what we spend. So we're going to have to increase our budget and increase the recruiters to meet the challenges of recruiting ahead.

One of the other things that impacts on us, and I mentioned this earlier when I talked about volunteerism, is the longer deployments. When we took the AEF from a 90-day rotation to a 120-day rotation, that does have an impact on our force. Many of our pilots are airline pilots. When you start getting past the 60- to 90-day period, our airlines have to retrain the pilots at a great cost to them. So it's very important that we're allowed to do change-outs within our rotation period after 60 or 90 days so that we can maintain our presence in the AEF, but yet not cost our employers a great price by having our folks participate.

Additional challenges lie in the very capable but aging fleet that we have in the Air National Guard. It's no secret that our aircraft are older than most of the aircraft that are operated by the active component, but due to our superb maintenance, experienced air crews, and the help of some of our friends in the Congress who’ve equipped us with LITENING pods and others, we have very capable aircraft. But as the Air Force tries to transform, the Air National Guard must in fact step along with them as they transform, and in doing so we have to look at our aging fleet as somewhat of a liability in terms of the cost of operating that fleet.

The average age of our tanker fleet is some 41 years. Bombers go up to almost 30 years. Special operations and on down to strategic lift and fighter attack which are in the teens. Can you imagine that if we started recapitalizing our fleet today, just the tanker fleet alone, the last tanker that we would retire would be some 80 years old? That's hard to believe when you think in terms of the greatest, most powerful air and space force in the world.

I can vividly remember going to an air show in the late '50s at Andrews Air Force Base with my family and watching this sleek, shiny new C-130 land in a short field, go in reverse, and back up. I thought, “boy, that's really something. I wonder what the future holds?” Well, the future holds that same C-130 today.

In addition to our aging fleet, the Air Force is the executive agent for space. I won't get into General Lance W. Lord's business because I'm sure he'll make a presentation to you, but you can imagine the cost of recapitalizing the GPS satellites, the iridium satellite phone system, surveillance satellites, and entering into near space, in addition to information systems, information operations, and information warfare, which is tied directly to space.

In 1978 we launched some 50 satellites. Twenty-seven of them are still working now at a cost of $45 million per satellite. Some of the orbits that support our iridium satellite phone system are decaying and will have to be replaced, and I need not tell you that it's going to cost billions of dollars to do so. Near space in fact is touted as a low cost alternative to our satellites, but it still involves potentially very expensive systems.

Can we afford those systems? How do we recapitalize space along with recapitalizing our fleet?

As we look past today in the global war on terrorism, we must look at new and emerging threats, and potential peer competitors. One of the things that we get locked into, and it's easy to fall into that trap, is that we start to position ourselves on the lessons learned from the current war and start to acquire systems, strategies and attitudes to defeat the war that we're fighting. We must remember that in fact as a nation we will eventually have a peer competitor. And we've always had that peer competitor sooner, rather than later, than we predicted. So we must make sure that we acquire the systems necessary to fight the war 10 to 20 years from now that we'll be faced with and not focus so strongly on the global war on terrorism that we don't recapitalize and acquire the right capabilities. Working along with the combatant commanders we hope to be able to do that.

Transformation was the buzzword when I came to Washington three years ago. It's been eclipsed lately by Katrina and the global war on terrorism, but transformation will always in fact be there.

What are the forcing factors that we look at as an Air National Guard when we consider transformation? Air National Guard transformation has to go along with the Air Force as I said earlier. However, in fact, since we have the legacy aircraft, we will be hit first with aircraft leaving our fleet and we must look to new and emerging missions in space and information operations, as I mentioned earlier, to replace those aircraft. There will be approximately one-third less winged platforms to man for the future. If we lose our legacy systems, we will have to find missions to replace them very early on.

We have embarked on a very aggressive program with the Air Force to identify and to start a transformation into these new emerging missions such as space, information operations, AOCs and others.

One of the difficulties is the manpower. Finding manpower in fact after the BRAC will be a real challenge for the Air National Guard. You see with BRAC and us, it was good news/bad news. Some of the states got to keep their iron that was originally slated to go away or to go to other locations and consolidate for efficiencies, when in fact those aircraft were left in place or those installations who lost their aircraft kept the people in place by law. We'll be challenged to find the manpower to go to these new emerging missions.

In a perfect world we would have QDR first, then a BRAC, then we would determine what our Future Total Force, or FTF, would look like. In the world we live in, which we all know is not perfect, we have a QDR and BRAC occurring simultaneously as we try to cope with the Future Total Force.

I'd like to talk to you about something … One of the things we learned, again with Operation Katrina Relief, was that the status that the Air National Guard finds itself in is different from what the active component is used to dealing with. Because we are a dual-missioned force, the National Guard being the Army and the Air National Guard, are the only components who have the State relief and State mission. And as such, the Governor is usually our commander. Whether she or he has us in state active duty or in Title 32, which is a federal status, the Governor, in fact, is the commander. It is only when we're activated for deployments overseas or doing statutory tours here at the Pentagon are we on Title 10.

This is very important that you understand because there are a lot of people who say we need to put the federal troops in earlier, when in fact the Governor can respond with the troops that they have in their state under Title 10 status, and other states can come in and respond to the state mission under Title 32. It's the best of both worlds because in fact it gives the Governor control of the forces that are in the state, while in fact the federal resources will pay for the equipment and soldiers and Airmen that are participating. So Title 32 is actually the most flexible status that we have.

Let’s talk about control, and what we're used for. Under Title 32 right now, it's used primarily for training. You will probably see a push to change the Air National Guard's statutes under Title 32, the National Guard statute, to reflect that in Title 32 troops can do other than training. They can do some operational missions. This will give more flexibility and ease the restrictions on Title 32, thereby making it even stronger and a better status for us to be in.

You can see that with the massive devastation in the two States of Mississippi and Louisiana, that the States will be hard-pressed, their budgets will be hard-pressed, to recover, and having the troops there in a federal status will greatly ease that burden.

In conclusion I want to tell you that we are proud partners of this Total Force.

We have been involved in our nation's conflicts for over 300 years. In 9/11, National Guard members dropped what they were doing without being recalled and responded from their jobs to their local units and prepared to defend the country.

I want you to go away today with an idea that the National Guard is a vibrant, well trained, very well organized and very well led organization that will respond to the nation now and in the future. We are in fact ready, reliable and relevant and we are needed now more than ever—the Air National Guard.

Thank you, and I'll entertain your questions. [Applause]

Q: During Operation Katrina Relief, was there a breakdown of State authority concerning Title 32 and Title 10 status?

Lieutenant General James: I'll tell you as an overall, what we did from the Bureau is we contacted the States, and when we asked them to send forces in we told them they had the option of sending them in under Title 32 or State active duty depending on what that Governor and that Adjutant General wanted to do, so we didn't have that exact breakdown. We will by the time we have to go up on Capitol Hill and answer all the questions.

But the decision to go should be the Governor's in coordination with the National Guard Bureau. You must have been reading the emails last night. Did you get ahold of my blackberry?

There's a debate beginning right now as to who has the authority to say when Title 32 status will be invoked. We would like to leave it to the discretion of the Governor of the State that has the emergency because if you can see, if you're under Title 32 status you have all the protections, especially medical protections, that you have as an active Title 10 Airman. If you're under State active duty your medical is covered, in most states, through workman's comp and you know that that's not anywhere near as responsive and broad coverage as you would get through Title 32.

So the first group of folks who went in, the first 5,000 that were activated by the Governors, were on State active duty.

Then, as we flowed, the next 2,000 came in initially on State active duty and we sent the word out, Lieutenant General H. Steven Blum and myself, that they had the option to go in Title 32 or State active duty. Most of the Air National Guard forces are on Title 32 and the reason for that is on a daily basis when we go to fly our training missions we're in Title 32. We're operating federal equipment, we're doing a training mission and it falls right under Title 32. So the normal method of operation for the Air National Guard is Title 32. To get those soldiers there we had to fly them there in C-130s. We were in Title 32. So the bulk of the rest of the effort was under Title 32.

When the President called the 82nd Airborne and other brigades in, obviously those were Title 10 forces. I'll get the breakdown for you later and send it to you, but you'll get to see us probably on the Hill discussing this response in the next few months and I think you'll get to see those numbers.

Again, I think Title 32 with a few adjustments, and we have the Adjutant General of the great state of Alaska here, Major General Craig E. Campbell. He has a very interesting challenge dealing with Title 10 and Title 32 in his state because of the ballistic missile defense forces that are being employed there, and they are Army National Guard soldiers, but there's a big debate as to whether they should be active duty soldiers or Guard soldiers on Title 10, mobilized, or whether they should be active duty.

Q: Who was the supported command during the crisis?

Lieutenant General James: NORTHCOM was the supported command. This is the reason why you have a NORTHCOM. Then you roll TRANSCOM as the force provider in there. But to be very honest with you, because we got a call from the Adjutant General, Major General Bennett C. Landreneau from Louisiana, when the waters were rising and they saw how the situation was rapidly getting out of control, we were called and we sent calls out to the States to respond. We responded under what we call Guard Lift. So in fact we had units ready to go. We had, for example in Washington we had a tanker squadron flying into Oregon to pick up military police to get them in there to stabilize the situation. We informed NORTHCOM, but we actually had these assets moving before NORTHCOM tasked us, because that's what we do as the National Guard. We respond immediately.

That may become an issue later on because it wasn't tasked in the first couple of days very heavily, but yet the response was very appropriate. A lot of the data that will show what the DoD response was was lost initially to the news media, but in fact we were responding.

But to answer your question, this comes right under NORTHCOM. This is why you have NORTHCOM.

Q: Can you describe your situation in terms of communications during the crisis?

Lieutenant General James: Primarily we were getting updates and situation reports from NORTHCOM through the normal communication channels. However, once the hurricane hit the inability to communicate was immediate. It was almost immediate because all the infrastructure was either destroyed by the hurricane or flooded and destroyed that way. So one of the most important things for situational awareness, as you know, is the ability to get information, accurate and timely information. There's an expression in the Army and you've all heard it, always ignore the first report when you have contact. But in this case the second and third report we never got because the infrastructure was wiped out.

So the people who would respond—the Governor and the Mayor and the Adjutant General—were having a difficult time building their situation awareness because the communications were destroyed.

What it showed us was that we have to spend and focus more of our resources on communication that's not dependent. We have signal battalions and we have combat comm groups and you'll see monies being focused, funneled into those that are not infrastructure dependent so they can use the satellite systems and build the iridium phone systems and other phone systems so folks can talk to one another. This will come out of Katrina loud and clear.

Q: Can you talk a bit about education assistance programs at the State level and how they can benefit Air National Guard personnel?

Lieutenant General James: It varies from state to state. I don't know what Alaska does. I know what Texas does because I was Adjutant General there. When I talk to the Adjutants General I find that it varies from State to State. As to how much of the tuition they will pay, how many years they will allow you to use the program, how many years you have to commit to the National Guard … In Texas it was up to six years if you used the program. You had to stay two years after you got your degree, you still owed them two years. They did up to 12 units per semester and the program was good for five years. So it varies from State to State.

So the combination of the GI Bill, or State programs … Now the State revenues are really strapped. As you saw in the paper last year or the year before, the States were having a hard time with their budgets so some of these programs have been either cut or marginalized. But as the economy improves you'll probably see them come back into play. But that is one of the strongest draws that we have, I would say, as an organization, is education.

This brings up a topic that I would want to address to you and that is the change in expectations. We're fighting the global war on terrorism with Guard and Reserve components that primarily joined to get an education or a technical skill. Although they're good, decent Americans, we weren't at war when they joined, and so as we recruit people we have to make sure that they understand and have an expectation that they may come into conflict. Because we don't want to lose those folks and recruit them with the understanding that they're going to be a stay-behind force because they're in the National Guard. That's just not true. And if you listened to the percentages and the numbers that I gave earlier, you'll see that in fact that is not true.

So one of the things that DoD is looking at is changing the commitment when you join the National Guard, or having the individual commit to a contract that will say, “I will spend 100 to 130 days over the next three years, I'll be available to be deployed or be activated to go and mobilized to go and fight on the global war on terrorism or any conflict we have.”

The problem with that is it kind of goes against the grain in volunteerism. So in doing something like that, trying to get predictability of the number and the size of the force that you'll have available, you might negatively impact that volunteer spirit that's worked so well for us.

I think the answer is make it easy for folks, make it predictable. Give them all the benefits. Give them the educational benefits. Let them know that they're going to go to the AEF, and every 20 months they may have to spend up to 120 days in an AEF. Let them know that they're going to spend probably over 100 days on active duty a year in some training or operational force or mobilized or doing what we call Title 32 as opposed to 39.

There's a great cartoon where this Army Soldier has put in the window of his vehicle a sign that reads, “Two weeks a year, or two days a month my [bleep].” What it's saying is that's not what he thought he was getting into, but in fact he's there in Iraq serving.

They need to know that they're going to be expected to be more of a battlefield-type Airman than the Airman that we attracted years ago.

Q: Can you talk in more detail about the types of new missions the Air National Guard will be called to take on? Have these been defined yet?

Lieutenant General James: Yes. Well, I talked in general about space and information operations and information warfare are some of the new missions. The other missions are UAVs, Predators. We have identified some five States that will be involved in a UAV mission, a Predator mission—North Dakota and we've talked about Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada. Also we're looking at possibly New York and Indiana. Digital ground stations to support those. We've talked about air operations groups and air operations centers. If you look at how the command and control functions in a time of conflict you can see there's a tremendous need for air operation centers to be augmented by Guard and Reserve forces.

The missions that I think best fit the National Guard of the future will be primarily the missions that we can participate in through reachback. In other words, a UAV mission where in fact the actual aircraft is flown in the continental United States at a base near you so that the member does not have to be activated and deploy.

Any other questions? General Spruance has one.

Q: There have many reports that the Air National Guard wasn’t properly consulted by the Pentagon during the BRAC process. Wasn’t there supposed to be thorough consultation done here, all the way down to the level of the Governors and State adjutant generals?

Lieutenant General James: I said in the perfect world that's the way it would happen. Since there's press in the room I don't want to go on record as criticizing the process. I support the process.

Q: Given the recommendations currently embodied in the BRAC, do you feel that the Air National Guard is going to have the people, systems and platforms it needs to get the mission done in the coming years?

Lieutenant General James: We have new leadership in the Air Force and we're going to work very closely with that new leadership to make sure that we have the adequate force to meet the threats. The issue with BRAC is once it's signed by the President and accepted by the Congress it is law. So there are things in BRAC that we're going to have to fulfill because it is law, but we will work very closely with the leadership of the Air Force to make sure that we have the capabilities to meet the threats and the needs of the nation.

Q: Can you comment on the future structure of Guard forces in Maryland if BRAC is approved?

Lieutenant General James: If it's in BRAC and it's signed by the President it's law so we have to comply. We don't have an option there.

Now what adjustments we make for future aircraft going into Maryland or other states is something that will be worked between us and the Air Force leadership, but we cannot break the law and not abide by what's put in BRAC. That's why BRAC was very powerful as a mechanism to shape not only the infrastructure but in some cases shaping the force structure.

Q: What is the current federally mandated age for Guard and Reserve personnel to begin collecting retirement pay?

Lieutenant General James: Sixty.

Q: Could we see any reform in this area sometime soon?

Lieutenant General James: You're asking about early retirement. You're asking if in fact the retirement age is going to be lowered from what it currently is, age 60, to age 55. There's a lot of support for that in the field as you can imagine, but I think it would have to be an adjusted annuity in order to pay for that because there is quite a big bill that would be handed to DoD to take out of their top line to pay for the retirement systems. Right now they're wrestling with a huge bill that's been generated by the increased coverage for TRICARE, so there's a lot of popular support for that in the field. I don't know that there's a lot of support for it in DoD. We'll just have to watch that and see how it moves. But I think the field is communicating with their representatives and letting them know how they feel about that because I'm often asked about that when I visit the Hill.

Q: You had mentioned the difficulties you are having in recruiting. It seems like I hear Air National Guard ads on the radio fairly frequently where I live. Is your message really not getting enough exposure?

Lieutenant General James: We have about $5.9 million in the budget for recruiting, that includes advertising I believe also. What I'm asking for is it to be increased three-fold. So I asked the Congress to increase our budget for recruiting because of that.

Because what you see, the spots you see or you hear on the radio are at times during the day when the cost is very low and the target audience may not be there. But in fact if you look at what the Army National Guard has done, they've released 2,000 Soldiers to augment the 2,000 they had as recruiters, and they've gotten involved in NASCAR. What they spend on their NASCAR is more than what we spend on our entire recruiting effort, so we're going to have to change that.

Thank you for your question.

Thank you very much for your attention everyone. [Applause]

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