Word: guarde
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Without fanfare, the once under-equipped and poorly trained National Guard and Air National Guard have been transformed into an efficient and indispensable component of the nation's military. Increasingly, the Pentagon is calling on the Guard for national service. During the past few years, Guard units have improved roads and bridges in Honduras in indirect support of the U.S.-backed contras fighting in Nicaragua. When President Reagan sent U.S. aircraft into harm's way, Guard pilots flew the tankers that refueled the American F-111s bound for the strike against Libya. The Guard also helped rescue American students...
...National Guard fulfills an equally critical function. It has been assigned almost full responsibility for the defense of the continental U.S. against enemy air strikes. Kept on 24-hour alert, the Air Guard flies 78% of all the interceptor aircraft in the U.S. inventory. In any call to large-scale combat, the Air Guard would handle 49% of all tactical air-support missions...
Gone are the days when the Guard operated with cast-off equipment from the regular military. Guardsmen now drive the latest M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, while Guard pilots fly every type of Air Force plane save the top-secret F-19 Stealth fighter. The Texas Air Guard, for example, recently acquired $723.9 million worth of new equipment, including 21 F-16 fighters costing $22 million each...
...Guard pilots are counted among the world's best. Many flew combat missions in Viet Nam and now man commercial airliners for a living, spending much of their own time in the jazzier world of military jets. In interservice competition, the Guard fliers often beat out their Air Force counterparts...
While some experts are worried that the military has become too dependent on the Guard, the nation's Governors fret about losing control of the troops they like to think of as their own. More than half-a-dozen Governors have said they would rebuff Pentagon calls for Guardsmen to serve along the Honduran-Nicaraguan border. Some, like Maine's Joseph Brennan and Arizona's Bruce Babbitt, are reluctant to help the Reagan Administration in its support of the contras. Most of the reservations, however, arise from the Governors' determination to retain full authority to use the Guard in such...