Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talks with Elaine Wright, who volunteers with the Maryland National Guard's family programs, at the 2010 National Guard Family Program Volunteer Workshop in New Orleans, La., on Aug. 2, 2010. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill) (Released)

By Army Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill
National Guard Bureau

NEW ORLEANS – Military readiness is directly tied to family readiness, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told National Guard family program volunteers here today.

“This is our ninth year at war,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said. “We continue at a level that has generated extraordinary results from the best military that I have ever been associated with in some 40-plus years.”

Family support has been a vital ingredient. “We couldn’t be anywhere close to where we are without you,” Mullen said.

The National Guard has transformed since Sept. 11, 2001, Mullen said. “There’s no institution where things have changed more dramatically than in the Guard,” he said. “We would not be anywhere close to where we are in terms of our execution of mission without the Guard and Reserve.”

And like other elements of the armed forces, the Guard has improved its family programs.

Army Maj. Gen. David A. Sprynczynatyk, the adjutant general of the North Dakota National Guard, talks with National Guard troops assigned to Kosovo Forces 12 (KFOR 12), Multi-National Battle Group - East (MNBG-E), at Camp Bondsteel, near Urosevac in eastern Kosovo, on May 23, 2010, during a visit by National Guard and Defense Department leaders. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill) (Released)

By Army Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill
National Guard Bureau

PRISTINA, Kosovo – More than a decade into a National Guard mission to support Kosovo’s security and stability, the chief of the National Guard Bureau said he saw significant progress in the young nation during a late May visit here.

 “The mission has evolved over the years from a hot, kinetic fight to supporting … NATO forces … to a point where Kosovo can continue to be an independent country and can stand on its own two feet with good governance,” Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley said during his second visit here.

 “The reason I wanted to come back to Kosovo was to thank these forces – predominantly from North Dakota, but with 13 additional states – for this mission, because I think at times it does drop off the average American citizen’s radar screen,” McKinley said.

 Through the 1990s, this Delaware-sized new nation was wracked by Serbian repression of the Albanian majority and by an insurgency bent on independence. NATO intervention in 1999 ended the violence.

 U.S. troops, including the National Guard, have been part of a NATO and United Nations police force on the ground ever since. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17, 2008.

 “The National Guard is a tremendous instrument for smart power,” Missouri Sen. Christopher Bond said in March. Smart power is the application of a range of diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal and cultural tools to foreign-policy demands.

 Here in Kosovo, the National Guard assists in keeping the peace and helping a fledgling nation find its feet. This is one of numerous domestic and overseas missions simultaneously executed by Guardmembers who have seen a greatly increased operational tempo since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Guard’s transformation from a strategic reserve to an operational force.

By Army Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill
National Guard Bureau

WASHINGTON – The National Guard is aggressively addressing a spike in Citizen-Soldier and –Airman suicides that reflects a trend throughout the military.

“We are alarmed by the suicide rates we’re seeing inside the Army National Guard,” Army Maj. Gen. Raymond Carpenter, the component’s acting director, told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on defense in March. “Almost half of the suicides we’re experiencing are from Soldiers who haven’t even deployed. There’s more to this than just the mobilization and deployment piece.”

Last year, 65 Army National Guard Soldiers killed themselves; 15 Air National Guard Airmen died by suicide.

The trend continues. The Army National Guard confirmed 34 suicides through April 26. The Air Guard confirmed six.

Of the 34 Army National Guard deaths so far this year, 20 had never deployed, Guard officials reported. Of the six Air National Guard suicides, four had not deployed.

The increases echo a spike throughout the armed forces.

“As I look at the numbers for each service, the rates have gone up per capita at about the same rate over the past four or five years for every service,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, said in January, according to American Forces Press Service. “This isn’t just a ground-force problem.”

As has happened in other medical specialties, such as trauma care, the military is making a leading contribution to suicidology.

“The subject of suicide is one of tremendous difficulty and challenge and understanding,” Mullen said. “Certainly, … with the rise in the numbers in all the services since these wars, [Defense Department officials have] started to really look at the causes and get to a point where we can prevent this and understand this.”

The Army and Air National Guard investigate every suicide.

“We do a detailed analysis on each one of these suicides because we want to know what happened in that individual’s life that caused them to think that suicide was the best option,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt III, director of the Air National Guard, told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense in April.

“What we’ve found is that they’ve had some sort of significant event inside of their own life, either they lost their girlfriend, they lost their job,” Wyatt said.

The numbers of suicidal servicemembers who have not deployed and analysis of the apparent reasons behind suicides and suicide attempts led Army Col. Gregg Bliss, chief of the Army National Guard’s Soldier and Family Support Division, to conclude that while the National Guard’s expanding suicide prevention programs are important, instilling resiliency throughout the Guard is critical.

By Army Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill
National Guard Bureau

ARLINGTON, Va., (2/1/10) – A National Guard that has been vital to national defense for the past eight years will remain an operational force, according to the Department of Defense’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review released today.

“Preventing and deterring conflict will likely necessitate the continued use of some elements of the Reserve Component … in an operational capacity well into the future,” the QDR states.

The QDR is a legislatively mandated review of DoD strategy and priorities that occurs every four years.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates delivered the 2010 QDR report to Congress today. It is the fourth QDR since the 1997 act that made it mandatory and the second conducted in wartime.

“Over the past eight years, the National Guard and Reserves have consistently demonstrated their readiness and ability to make sustained contributions to ongoing operations,” the QDR states.

“We don’t want to put our National Guard back on the shelf like we’ve done after every major war our nation’s been in,” said Gen. Craig McKinley, the chief of the National Guard Bureau. “We’re going to have a demand on our National Guard for the foreseeable future.”

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997, which established the QDR, also required that it be conducted in consultation with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“We could not have accomplished what we have these past eight years were it not for our Reserve and National Guard forces,” Navy Adm. Michael Mullen wrote in his formal assessment of the QDR.