By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 15, 2012 – New authority
in this year’s Defense Department authorization act allows the Army, Navy, Air
Force and Marine Corps reserves to be called to duty in response to natural
disasters or emergencies in the homeland, and also to be mobilized for extended
periods to support theater security missions around the world.
Except for a crisis involving a weapon
of mass destruction, the reserves historically have been prohibited from
providing a homeland disaster response, Army Lt. Gen. Jack C. Stultz, the Army
Reserve chief, told reporters yesterday.
That job was reserved for the National
Guard, which state governors could call up as needed to support civil
authorities. If additional forces were required – as when Hurricane Katrina
devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005 – active-duty service members became the
federal default force.
That’s long been a frustration to
Stultz, who saw no sense in bypassing local reserve members simply because they
operate under federal “Title 10” authority and not state “Title 32” authority.
“In a lot of cases, there were
reserve-component soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who were close at hand
with the capabilities needed, but didn’t have the authority to act,” he said.
“Finally, we got the law changed. This new legislation says that now we can use
Title 10 reserves.”
For these forces to be used, the law
specifies that the president must declare an emergency or disaster and a state
governor must request the assistance.
Stultz clarified what hasn’t changed
under the law. Civil authorities will remain the first responders. And when
they need military support, National Guard forces will be the first to step in
when called by their state governor. “We are not trying to change any of that,”
the general said.
But now, when a situation also demands a
federal response, reserve forces can step in to assist for up to 120 days.
Army Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr.,
commander of U.S. Northern Command, and his staff are evaluating their federal
response plan to take advantage of these new capabilities, Stultz said.
Meanwhile, Stultz participated in a
recent U.S. Army North exercise that helped to test the concept. The scenario
involved two hurricanes hitting the United States almost simultaneously,
requiring a federal response.
The exercise helped participants work through
the procedures that would be involved in calling Title 10 forces to duty,
Stultz explained. “How does the governor and the adjutant general within a
state go through the process of asking for federal help?” he said. “How do Army
North and Northcom identify what capabilities are close by that they can use?
How do we go through alerting these forces to go down and help this natural
disaster? And as always, who cuts the order to put them on duty, and who
provides the funding?”
Stultz said he’s gratified by almost
universal support for the new legislative authority.
“Everybody is on board, from the
governors to the adjutants general to Army North to Northcom saying this is
going to be a good thing,” he said. “We just have to make sure we have the
procedures and processes worked out.”
And now, before the authority is
actually needed, is the time to get that resolved, he said. “Let’s not wait
until a hurricane hits to say, ‘How do we do it?’ he said.
Another change in the 2012 authorization
act allows Title 10 reservists to be called to duty to support unnamed overseas
contingencies. The reserves, and particularly the Army Reserve, have a long
history of deploying members for medical, engineering and other missions to
support theater engagement and security cooperation efforts.
Typically, they did so as their annual
training, which generally limits their engagements to 21 to 29 days, Stultz
said. That could be particularly limiting when the missions are in far-flung
parts of the world, he said, sometimes reducing time on the ground to as little
as 14 days before the reservist had to pack up and return home.
“With this new authority, now we can
send them down for much longer periods of time,” Stultz said.
As operations wind down in Afghanistan,
Stultz said, he hopes reservists will be more available to support combatant
commanders’ theater engagement campaigns. Based on the Army force generation
model, that means Army Reservists will be ready to deploy one out of every five
years. He said the pool of ready reservists could conduct extended
theater-support missions.
A hospital unit, for example, could
potentially spend three months rather than three weeks supporting a medical
mission in Central or South America, Africa or Asia. And at the end of that
three-month period, another reserve unit could rotate in to replace them.
This additional capability, Stultz said,
would give combatant commanders far more assets to support their engagement
strategies across their areas of responsibility, even at a time of dwindling
resources.
“It is not going to happen overnight,”
he conceded. “But over time, as we are sending an engineer unit to do a project
in the Philippines, [we] have to sit with the Pacific Command and U.S. Army
Pacific and say, ‘Next year, instead of 29 days, let’s do 60 or 90.’”
By Mass Communication Specialist Seaman
Frank J. Pikul, Southern Seas 2012 Public Affairs
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