Air Guard in the Red:

March 5, 2007

The chairman of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro says DOD declared the United States has an operational reserve, but has not made changes to ensure its sustainability. At a March 1 press briefing unveiling the commission’s second report, Punaro claimed: “The equipment readiness of our Guard and Reserve today is totally unacceptable … for the units that remain here in the continental United States, 88 percent of those units are not ready. If you’re talking about red, yellow, green [readiness ratings] … red would be ‘not ready’ … in the Air Guard it’s 45 percent red. The National Guard has indicated to me this is worse than the worst readiness days of the hollow force in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.”

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