MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., - The Air National Guard’s medical professionals are uniquely suited to respond to any asymmetric challenge that confronts our nation in the future, the National Guard’s top officer said here June 19.
“All of the missions that the medical field has done over time … have put it into a position to be the lead medical response for the homeland,” said Air Force Gen. Craig R. McKinley. “We’re not going to be able to do it alone, but we’ll have to set up the training, organization, command and control, and the integration with our Army Guard to make it a seamless force.”
McKinley, who is the chief of the National Guard Bureau, spoke to an audience at the 2010 Readiness Frontiers conference here.
“The Air Guard is moving away from those traditional core competencies into other things,” he said. “And I would say that the medical specialties you represent are those new areas of concern that will help our country in this century in a time of asymmetric challenge.”
Another new area is the Homeland Response Force. “Over the next two years, I am going to challenge [the leadership] to stand up 10 Homeland Response Forces, one in each FEMA region,” he said.
“The Army National Guard will have the preponderance of force, but the Air Guard will own the medicine-side because [the Air Guard] is positioned well to do the medical effort.”
Ohio and Washington will host the first two Homeland Response Forces.
However, McKinley said these missions may need to cross state lines and states may need to partner with one another in order to complete the mission.
“You all are on the verge of creating a new organizational construct that could be an important mission for the homeland as we continue to fight the people that we are fighting now,” he said.
McKinley also discussed some of the budgetary concerns and decisions that will be made in the next few months that could benefit the Guard in its mission areas.
“We need to reevaluate and reign in the prices we pay for those administrative personnel that we rely on,” he said, “and Secretary of Defense [Robert] Gates has asked us to fix it and has said that those of you who are successful can keep the savings and put it in to where you need it to be.
“For the next few years—maybe decades—we have to live in an age of austerity, putting ourselves in a corner, but we have to realize that we’re there and find a solution to get out.”