http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/20/national/20guard.html
The New York Times
July 20, 2004
Governors Tell of War's Impact on Local Needs
By SARAH KERSHAW
S EATTLE, July 19 - With tens of thousands of their citizen soldiers
now deployed in Iraq, many of the nation's governors complained on
Sunday to senior Pentagon officials that they were facing severe
manpower shortages in guarding prisoners, fighting wildfires,
preparing for hurricanes and floods and policing the streets.
Concern among the governors about the war's impact at home has been
rising for months, but it came into sharp focus this weekend as they
gathered for their four-day annual conference here and began comparing
the problems they faced from the National Guard's largest callup since
World War II. On Sunday, the governors held a closed-door meeting with
two top Pentagon officials and voiced their concerns about the impact
both on the troops' families and on the states' ability to deal with
disasters and crime.
Much of the concern has focused on wildfires, which have started to
destroy vast sections of forests in several Western states. The
governor of Oregon, Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat, said in an interview
after meetings here Monday that the troop deployment had left his
National Guard with half the usual number of firefighters because
about 400 of them were overseas while a hot, dry summer was already
producing significant fires in his state.
"We're praying a lot that a major fire does not break out," he said.
"It has been dry out here, the snow pack's gone because of an
extremely warm May and June and the fire season came earlier."
He added, "You're just going to have fires and if you do not have the
personnel to put them out, they can grow very quickly into ultimately
catastrophic fires.''
Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, a Republican of Idaho and departing chairman of
the National Governors Association, also said through a spokesman that
he was worried about the deployment of 2,000 members, or 62 percent of
his National Guard, who are now training in Texas for a mission in
Iraq.
"In the past we've been able to call on the National Guard," said Mark
Snider, a spokesman for the governor. "We may not be able to call on
these soldiers for firefighting capabilities."
California fire and forestry officials said they were not using
National Guard troops to battle wildfires plaguing that state, but
they did say that they were using nine Blackhawk helicopters borrowed
from the Guard to fight the fires. Some of the helicopters are bound
for Iraq in September.
More than 150,000 National Guard and Reserve troops are on active
duty. Many of the Guard troops have received multiple extensions of
their tours of duty since the United States went to war with Iraq last
year.
While Western governors focused mostly on wildfires, governors and
other officials from other regions expressed a host of other worries,
both at the meeting here and in telephone interviews. In Arizona,
officials say, more than a hundred prison guards are serving overseas,
leaving their already crowded prisons badly short-staffed. In
Tennessee, officials are worried about rural sheriff's and police
departments, whose ranks have been depleted by the guard call- up. In
Virginia, the concern is hurricanes; in Missouri, floods. And in a
small town in Arkansas, Bradford, both the police chief and the mayor
are now serving in Iraq, leaving their substitutes a bit overwhelmed.
"Our mayor and our police chief, along with six others were activated,
and they're over in Iraq," said the acting mayor, Greba Edens, 79, in
a telephone interview. "We had a police officer that could step in as
chief, and I've been treasurer for 20 years so that just put me in the
mayor's spot whether I wanted or it not."
Many of the most outspoken governors who expressed concerns here about
the National Guard deployments over the weekend were Democrats,
including Mr. Kulongoski, Tom Vilsack of Iowa, Mark Warner of Virginia
and Gary Locke of Washington.
"This has had a huge impact," Governor Locke said during a news
conference on Saturday.
In his state, 62 percent of its 87,000 Army National Guard soldiers
are on active duty, including the majority of the guard's best-trained
firefighters, at a time when wildfires are beginning to sweep through
the state, according to state officials.
But even during a meeting that featured plenty of partisan sniping,
Republicans also sounded worried about whether the deployments would
leave them vulnerable in emergencies.
Roger Schnell, Alaska's deputy commissioner for the Department of
Military and Veterans Affairs, said in a telephone interview that
wildfires raging through central Alaska were especially worrisome,
given that 15 percent of its National Guard was stationed overseas.
Alaska's governor, Frank H. Murkowski, a Republican, attended the
governors' association meeting but was not available for comment.
While it is a small deployment compared with that of other sates,
"they are critical people," Mr. Schnell said, adding that the Alaska
National Guard was called in two weeks ago to help battle the fires.
"It has the potential to get much worse than it is," he said. "It's
already bad. That could put us in a bind."
Maj. Gen. Timothy J. Lowenberg, commander of the Washington State
National Guard, who attended the Sunday meeting with Pentagon
officials, said in an interview that he heard worries voiced by plenty
of Republicans.
"There are absolutely no partisan pattern to the concerns being
raised," he said. "They are being articulated by governors of both
parties."
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