Wolfowitz Addresses Guard, Reserve Deployment Concerns

Though reserve component forces are going through a stressful time, the Defense Department is working hard to improve the situation, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Guard and Reserve leaders here today.

Wolfowitz, speaking at the Adjutants General Association of the United States mid-winter meeting, told the group the nation is asking National Guard and Reserve members to serve for longer periods and in larger numbers and "with greater uncertainty than I think any of us ever envisioned."

Wolfowitz cited several burdens being placed on both reserve components, noting that National Guard and Reserve soldiers make up 40 percent of the new rotation going into Iraq.

The deputy secretary said that when he flew into Iraq aboard a Tennessee Air National Guard C-130 in July, he was told the unit had been on active duty 19 of the 23 previous months. He said that case begs a fair question: "Are we distributing the burden fairly?" It's impressive, however, that fair or not, "people take of the burdens that are assigned to them," he added.

He said that case also illustrates the need for the Pentagon to look at tour lengths and balancing skill areas for Guard and Reserve forces. "We are doing that," he said. "And in doing so, we are emphasizing how we use our people, whether it's for 39 days a year or for 365."

He said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is committed to reducing mobilization by looking at how to balance military commitments throughout the total force.

"We need to ensure that we have the right kinds of capabilities that meet the mission requirements we face," he said. "We are looking hard at it, and I think we are making lots of changes, and I know we are making progress."

Wolfowitz said the Pentagon is well aware that the process for calling up and deploying National Guard and Reserve forces is "imperfect." "As you know, our top leader is engaged, and everyone who works for him is engaged, including all of you in this room, to deal with this problem better," he said.

The deputy secretary said the Pentagon is working with the combatant commanders and the services to ensure they are identifying requirements in a timely way that allow for members of the Guard and Reserve to react "purposely and methodically."

"We are committed to not having one more soldier or airman than necessary in any theater, nor one soldier or airman less than required," he said.

Still, he reminded the room filled with top reserve component leaders that the nation is fighting a long war against terrorism. He said that in the two and half years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the country has made "extraordinary progress." But, he added, "there's a great deal more to do."

Wolfowitz said he has enormous respect for and is grateful to guardsmen and reservists for playing a critical role in the global war on terrorism and for helping to strengthen the total force.

The nation "could not fight the war on terrorism without the support of guardsmen and reservists, and the employers who support them," he said.

Don't miss the last line of this story of sacrifice and courage...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (2/23/2004) — A standing-room-only crowd of soldiers, civilians and children filled a conference room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center Saturday and watched, teary-eyed but smiling, as a Florida Army National Guard soldier was ceremoniously retired from military service.

Staff Sgt. Dustin Tuller sat at attention in a wheelchair, his Class A uniform trousers neatly folded beneath his left hip and right thigh, as his battalion commander read the official orders retiring him from the Army.

The 28-year-old college student, father of four and infantryman had both legs amputated after being wounded in an attack in Iraq in December.

Army officials expedited his medical retirement when doctors feared he wouldn’t survive his injuries.

“I was in a coma when I got my retirement papers,” Tuller said. “I wanted to have a retirement ceremony, because I’ve been in the Army for 10 years. I always wanted to be a soldier.
“If they hadn’t retired me, I’d still wear the uniform, even with no legs.”

The Company B, 3-124 Infantry soldier was almost killed and two others were injured during a raid in an area of Baghdad that the Army had designated simply “Section 17.”

Tuller had just positioned his squad outside a building to provide security during the raid when the soldiers came under fire. It was two days before Christmas.

Weeks later, and 2,000 miles away from the streets of Baghdad, Tuller awoke from a coma in a German hospital. He had been shot four times in his legs and pelvis.

While Tuller was unconscious, doctors had prepared his family for the worst.

“We’ve actually been told twice that he wasn’t going to make it,” said Tuller’s brother, Daniel, an Air Force C-17 Globemaster loadmaster stationed at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C.

The first time doctors notified the family they didn’t expect Tuller to survive was Christmas Eve. The second time was 13 days later, when he went into cardiac arrest.

Tuller’s prognosis had been so grim, Army officials decided to retire him from military service in a procedure called “imminent death processing.”

The Army applies imminent death procedures when a soldier is expected to die within 72 hours from a medical condition incurred or aggravated in the line of duty.

Imminent death processing allows the Army to retire the soldier, even with fewer than 20 years of service, thus providing additional benefits for the soldier’s family.

Tuller served in the Army for a total of nearly 10 years, entering active duty in 1994 and becoming a member of the Florida Army National Guard the day after he was discharged from active duty in 2000.

But, despite his gunshot wounds and resulting complications, including kidney failure, during the flight from Baghdad to Germany, Tuller survived.

“I remember some (about the attack),” Tuller said. “I had just gotten done putting my guys in position. I was putting myself in position, and that’s when I got shot in the back of the leg.

“After the first shot, I went to the ground and started crawling and yelling for a medic. I was looking for a concealed position, but there’s not much cover in an urban environment.”

The attacker had fired at Tuller from a window in a nearby building.

“As the guy was shooting me, I was shooting back,” Tuller said. “I shot an entire magazine.”

Tuller doesn’t remember what happened after the attack in Baghdad. The next thing he does remember is waking up in a hospital in Hamburg, Germany.

Although doctors hadn’t yet been forced to remove his legs, Tuller knew his lower body was badly damaged.

“I was afraid to even reach down there,” he said. “And communication was difficult when I woke up. Very few people spoke English.”

Members of Tuller’s family had been by his side almost the entire time he was unconscious. His brother Daniel, sister Brandie and wife Alisha arrived in Germany just days after the attack and spent almost a month with him there before he was moved here to Walter Reed.

“When my wife came to Germany, she split the children up,” Tuller said. “Two went with my parents and two went with her mom.”

But everyone -- Daniel, Brandie, Alisha and their children Dillyn, Zachery, Dammyn and Lexi, his parents David and Linda, and his mother-in-law Tracy Harding – was at Walter Reed to help celebrate Tuller’s survival.

During the retirement ceremony, Maj. Gen. Walter Pudlowski Jr., the acting deputy director of the Army National Guard, pinned a Purple Heart medal on Tuller’s uniform and Lt. Col. Thad Hill, the 3-124 Infantry commander, pinned on his Combat Infantry Badge.
Command Sgt. Maj. A. Frank Lever III, the commander sergeant major of the Army National Guard, presented Tuller with several items, including a flag and several commemorative coins.

Officials at the ceremony gave the Tuller children a collection of Army National Guard games, comic books and other materials.

Dillyn, the eldest, eagerly opened a pack of Army National Guard trading cards and flipped through them, excitedly calling to his parents when he found one with a picture of a soldier wearing a desert camouflage uniform and Kevlar helmet.

“Look!” he said, grinning. “It looks like Dad!”

Like many amputees, Tuller experiences “phantom pain” in his missing limbs. “Man, my feet hurt,” he said quietly, closing his eyes and lowering his head. But after a brief pause, he continued explaining what medical procedures still lie ahead.

It’s too soon yet for physical therapy and for doctors to start fitting him with prosthetics, he said. “I still have bandages and open wounds.”

Before his unit left Florida last January, Tuller was a student at Pensacola Junior College, preparing for a career as a physical education teacher.

Although he’s been away from school for more than a year, and it will be several more months before he’s released from Walter Reed and can return home to Pace, Fla., the interruption in his life and physical changes in his body haven’t changed his plans.

“I’m going back to school,” Tuller said firmly, “and I’m going to be a physical education teacher.”

http://www.ngb.army.mil/news/story.asp?id=995

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