DOD’s “Flawed Assumption”:

The chairman of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro, told the House Armed Services Committee last week that DOD has made a “flawed assumption” with its supposition that Guardsmen and Reservists engaged in overseas combat also remain trained to handle emergencies on US soil. “There is ample testimony not only from senior military officials that that doesn’t work anymore; there’s concrete evidence from 9/11 and from Katrina that that doesn’t work,” he said, emphasizing the need for identification of civil support mission requirements. “Since the Department of Defense has not identified requirements for the civil support mission, they don’t have mission essential task lists that our military trains against for those missions,” said Punaro.