COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

That's my assessment of the Inspector General's report, in which the Army finds that there was no systematic discrepency between the logistics support available to reserve component and active duty troops.

They've fixed a lot of stuff, but there were serious differences between the level of support provided to mobilized Guard units and active duty units, and at least in the spring and summer of 2003, it was HARD-WIRED INTO THE SYSTEM.

Case in point: When my unit, the 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry regiment was mobilized, we took along our old Viet Nam era flak jackets. But we saw that our equipment was out of date: The Air Guard guys attached to us as observers showed up in the modern IBVs, so we immediately requested the new vests and plates.

We were told repeatedly that Army policy was to sustain, not support, mobilized Guard units. Active Duty units would be supported, of course. But Guard units need not apply.

As a result, my light infantry battalion was stationed and running operations in Ramadi, Iraq for weeks before we were able to obtain the IBVs that were issued to Active Component units as a matter of course. And only then because of some creative scrounging by our foraging teams in Baghdad. The vests were available. The Army policy at the time, and CFLCC policy at the time, was to sustain, not support, Guard units.

Here's what I wrote about it at the time.
This fact alone would appear to falsify the Inspector's position that there was no systematic difference in the level of support provided to Active and Reserve units. If the Army's policy was to sustain Guard units and not support them, then how can it be that there was no "systematic" discrimination?

The discrimination in the personnel and pay systems were even more severe.

The Army had active and reserve component troops on entirely different pay systems, and the reserve system was wholly inadequate to the task.
Reservists were not allowed to send an allotment home to their families. Active duty soldiers were.

Reservists were not allowed to make automatic paycheck deductions into the Federal Thrift Savings Program.

Reserve and guard battalions exhibiting pay problems could not get them addressed by parent Active Duty units. Because of the Army's refusal in the first year or so of the war to mobilize Guard battalions as part of their parent brigades, the Active Army could not access Guardsmen's pay information on their systems. Pay was screwed up for the entire unit, and I'm STILL fixing pay problems, more than a year after the fact, mostly related to the inability of the reserve component pay system to account for the tax-free status of combat zone pay.

The replacement system for the Guard and Reserve was beyond fucked up. It was outright nonfunctional. So was the promotion system. I had a good E-3 who I wanted to move to E-4. The Company commander wanted him promoted. The 1SG wanted him promoted. I wanted him promoted. The Battalion Commander wanted him promoted.

The Army blocked it, repeatedly. He was attached to us from another Guard unit and was an engineer by trade, though he was working for us as a cook and doing a fine job. "You can't promote him, because he needs to be working in his MOS."

"Oh, no problem. Just cross attach him to a slot in an engineer unit and attach him back to us so we can promote him."

"No. You can't do that. Your unit's under stop loss."

"But we're not losing him!"

"Sorry. That's policy."

Yep. That was policy.

Remember who the Army Inspector General works for. I would love to get a state Adjutant's General's take on the IG report.

A lot of things have been fixed, fortunately, since then. But I've got to call a spade a spade. The Army was not successful in integrating active and reserve component forces in the first year of the war.

Housing and billeting was inadequate stateside. Reserve component drill sergeants mobilized to Fort Dix and other training areas are still getting substandard quarters, years later.

The inadequate housing afforded to recovering wounded at Fort Stewart caused a mini scandal in 2003.

Wounded reservists and guardsmen were warehoused in WWII barracks far from their communities, because the Army couldn't figure out how to contract with civilian doctors where these soldiers actually live.

Active duty soldiers have their wives and children near these posts. Reserve component troops do not.

And the Army is going to issue a report saying there was no systematic discrepency between the support offered to active component and reserve component troops?

No.

This is the greatest Army in history, with the best supported troops ever.

It can be even better. But not with self-serving reports like this. Ask the state adjutants general and their IGs. Ask the retiring CSMs and 1SGs. Ask the maintenance warrants about getting parts for the substandard vehicles in the Guard (I.e., M35A3 trucks, standard issue in the Guard, but the active duty CLIX parts system didn't even contain them.)

Splash, out

Jason