Objections to elevating Guard chief misguided, Leahy says

WASHINGTON -- Objections by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to legislation that would add the head of the National Guard to the group's membership reflect a "20th Century mentality," Sen. Patrick Leahy said Tuesday.

The legislation, which Leahy authored, passed the Senate on Monday.

"They will admit to you privately that there's no conceivable way they could field a force anywhere in the world today without the Guard," the Vermont Democrat said of the joint chiefs in an interview. "They will also concede to you privately that the United States would be devastated if we didn't have the Guard to react both in homeland security matters but in natural disasters. But then when you push them further, the answer you get is, 'Well, that's the way it's always been done.'"

Leahy, who chairs the Senate National Guard Caucus, said elevation of the Guard chief is overdue. Though the Guard's responsibilities have grown since the 2001 terrorist attacks, it's "trapped in a 20th Century Pentagon bureaucracy," he said.

Adding the Guard to the Joint Chiefs of Staff befits the scale of the Guard's missions here and overseas, he said.

The service chiefs on the Joint Chiefs of Staff argued against the change while testifying this month during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Leahy's proposal would make the Guard chief equal to the service chiefs but without the same accountability, since the service chiefs are subject to the oversight of a civilian secretary and the Guard chief is not, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs, said in written testimony.

"The argument to change the composition of the (Joint Chiefs of Staff) is simply not compelling," Dempsey said. "It's uncertain to me what problem we're trying to solve."

He also noted that the Guard chief currently attends meetings of the joint chiefs.

Leahy said such objections remind him of the service chiefs' opposition in the 1970s to making the Marine Corps commandant a member of the joint chiefs. Guard chiefs will prove themselves as members, just as Marine Corps commandants have done over the years, he said.

"Unfortunately, there's too many that will always look at what we did 10 years ago or 20 years ago without realizing that the world has changed dramatically," he said.

Leahy's bill, which had 71 Senate cosponsors, passed by voice vote as an amendment to the annual Defense Department authorization bill, which the Senate is still considering. A similar bill has passed the House.

The bill is the latest in a series of efforts by Leahy to give the Guard a more meaningful voice in Pentagon circles, including legislation signed into law in 2008 that elevated the Guard chief to the rank of a four-star general.

Maj. Gen. Michael Dubie, Vermont's adjutant general and president of the Adjutant Generals Association of the United States, said the Guard's representation on the Joint Chiefs of Staff would make sure "that both the nation's civilian and military leadership will receive the very best advice on matters relating to the National Guard serving overseas and here at home."

Retired Maj. Gen. Gus L. Hargett Jr., president of the National Guard Association of the United States, said Monday's Senate vote brings the Guard a step closer to its biggest legislative victory since the Dick Act of 1903 created the modern, dual-mission Guard.

"Without the Guard as a statutory participant at the table, our civilian leaders don't have direct access to the Guard's domestic-response capabilities and expertise," Hargett said. "In the post-9-11 world, it's a void that must be filled."