National Guard’s Role in U.S. Conflicts

* Re “Guard Likely Would Resist Domestic-Only Role,” Feb. 9: The National Guard has participated in all of this nation’s major conflicts. This is the role the founding fathers intended for our nation’s citizen soldiers. But our resistance to an exclusively domestic role isn’t based on pride or tradition. Nor is it based on ego, as one commentator in the article stated. It’s based on common sense and arithmetic.

Today, the active-duty military cannot conduct daily operations, let alone fight a major war, without the National Guard. That is why thousands of Guard men and women are currently serving in Asia, Central America and Europe. Limit half a million highly trained citizen soldiers to domestic missions and you dramatically limit America’s military options.

Our opposition is also based on economic sense. The National Guard is America’s defense bargain. We can maintain a citizen soldier for a small fraction of the cost of his or her active-duty counterpart. And as a bonus, state leaders get a force that assists local authorities during domestic emergencies while regularly helping counter the mounting problems of at-risk youth and illegal drugs. To limit the National Guard’s roles and missions would be to shortchange America’s overall security needs.

RICHARD C. ALEXANDER

Executive Director

National Guard Assn.

Washington