{"id":157966,"date":"2024-06-19T15:41:09","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T19:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=157966"},"modified":"2024-06-19T15:41:09","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T19:41:09","slug":"natl-guard-chief-says-ng-troops-defending-border-is-a-waste-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=157966","title":{"rendered":"Natl Guard Chief says NG troops defending border is a waste of time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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General Hokanson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Chief of the National Guard Bureau, General Daniel Hokanson, testified to Congress that the NG troops deployed to protect the southern border isn’t a militarily relevant mission. The quote is that it has “no military training value”, which seems pretty dense to me. He’d rather instead of deploying to defend the nation, they instead play wargames or some shit. Defending the country has always been the whole reason the National Guard exists!<\/p>\n

He also says that they might as well be deployed to Kuwait, since a CONUS deployment takes them away from their families just the same, except it’s infinitely easier and cheaper to take accrued leave from a stateside deployment to go home for major events.<\/p>\n

From Military Times<\/a>;<\/p>\n

The National Guard\u2019s ongoing security mission on the southern U.S. border provides \u201cno military training value\u201d to the troops stationed there and adds significant stress to their families, the head of the force told lawmakers on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said roughly 2,500 guardsmen are currently stationed along the southern border in support of Department of Homeland Security missions related to immigration issues.<\/p>\n

That number has fluctuated over the last seven years, peaking above 5,000 at points during the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Hokanson listed the mission as a key ongoing responsibility of his force, and said the guardsmen\u2019s presence provides \u201cadditional support\u201d for the security operations there.<\/p>\n

But under questioning from lawmakers, Hokanson acknowledged that the deployment does little to help troops with their long-term readiness goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no military training value in what we do there,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a law enforcement mission. \u2026 They\u2019re doing mission sets that are not directly applicable to their military skill sets. That time, I think, would be better used building readiness to deter our adversaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also noted that even though the deployment is within the United States, guardsmen \u201cmight as well be deployed to Kuwait or somewhere overseas, because they\u2019re still away from their families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawmakers said they are watching the ongoing border mission closely. The larger issues of immigration reform and border security have been the focus of impassioned fights on Capitol Hill, with conservatives \u2014 and some Democrats, including Montana Sen. John Tester \u2014 criticizing the White House for doing too little to address the topics.<\/p>\n

Hokanson, who was testifying on the Guard\u2019s fiscal 2025 budget request, said officials are still focused on \u201cbuilding a force that is lethal, resilient, survivable, agile, and responsive\u201d despite challenges facing leaders, which include both ongoing missions and fiscal uncertainty due to Capitol Hill fights.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we fail to modernize our equipment and force design adequately, we increase the risk of sending America\u2019s sons and daughters into large-scale combat operations with equipment and formations that may not be fully interoperable with the active duty forces we serve alongside,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Senate Appropriations Committee is still crafting its draft of the annual defense funding plan for next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1. The House is expected to vote on its version of the budget plan later this month.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chief of the National Guard Bureau, General Daniel Hokanson, testified to Congress that the NG … Natl Guard Chief says NG troops defending border is a waste of time<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":157967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[422,87,208],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border","category-general-whackos","category-national-guard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/157967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}