The Big Story: Overhauling Guard training is costly

From The Associated Press

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Pentagon is determined to overhaul both training and active duty tours for the Army National Guard, but finding a way to give these part-time soldiers more time at home will cost over $128 million, The Associated Press has learned.

After struggling for more than a year and a half to condense the training process, Guard leaders have managed to chop months off the time that citizen soldiers must spend away from their jobs and families due to deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Until early 2007, Guard combat brigades were training for up to six months — much of it away from home — and then would spend 12 months to 15 months in the war zone. The average time has been slashed to a bit more than 13 months, including about a month of training at home, another 40 to 70 days at the formal Army training center and roughly 10 months on the battlefront.

But it’s an expensive exercise, and training and equipping these part-time troops will cost nearly double the estimated $128 million pricetag of revamping the nature of their active-duty tours.

Depending on the size and type of unit, soldiers now are spending anywhere from two weeks to more than two months at the mobilization center, where they get their final, most up-to-date training. The last weeks could include the latest data on counterinsurgency efforts and methods to find and defeat roadside bombs, as well as instruction on new weapons or the latest mine-resistant vehicles.

The spike in spending will fund the hiring of roughly 2,000 trainers for the Guard who will be needed to ensure that the Guard members get as much training as they can during that one-year period before they mobilize. Already, according to Col. Rob Moore, chief of training for the Army National Guard, nearly 1,500 of those slots have been filled.

Moore said it will cost at least $128 million this year to hire the additional trainers and set up a small command unit in each state and U.S. territory. All those units, which comprise a small number of people who are in charge of the trainers, already have been created.

In addition, the Guard has spent about $5 million to buy cell phones, laptop computers and other supplies for each state.

“We’re really doing this on the cheap,” said Moore, who added that the current funding only allows units to begin training for their deployment a year before they are scheduled to go.