Kansas Governor: Guard Troops Needed at Home

May 7, 2007
Kansas Governor: Guard Troops Needed at Home

CHICAGO — For months, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and other governors have warned that their state National Guards were ill-prepared for the next local disaster, be it a tornado or a flash flood or a terrorist's threat, because of large deployments of their soldiers and equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then, on Friday night, a deadly tornado all but cleared the small town of Greensburg off the Kansas map. With 80 square blocks destroyed, Sebelius said her fears had come true: The emergency response was too slow, she said, and there was only one reason.

"As you travel around Greensburg, you'll see that city and county trucks have been destroyed," Sebelius, a Democrat, said on Monday. "The National Guard is one of our first responders. They don't have the equipment they need to come in, and it just makes it that much slower."

88 Percent of Guard Units Rated 'Not Ready'

March 2, 2007
88 Percent of Guard Units Rated 'Not Ready'

Nearly 90 percent of Army National Guard units in the United States are rated "not ready" --largely as a result of shortfalls in billions of dollars' worth of equipment -- jeopardizing their capability to respond to crises at home and abroad, according to a congressional commission that released a preliminary report yesterday on the state of U.S. military reserve forces.

The report found that heavy deployments of the National Guard and reserves since 2001 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for other anti-terrorism missions have deepened shortages, forced the cobbling together of units and hurt recruiting.