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ARLINGTON, Va., — The National Guard Bureau announced today the director of the Army National Guard has ordered an aviation safety stand down of all Army National Guard helicopter units to review safety policies and procedures following two recent helicopter crashes. The stand down went into effect Monday. Two separate crashes of AH-64D Apache helicopters in Utah on February 12 and Mississippi on February 23 drove the decision to ground all helicopters for safety reasons. Mississippi Army National Guard pilots Chief Warrant Officer 4 Bryan Andrew Zemek and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Derek Joshua Abbott died in the February 23...

First Lt. Megan Joyner's recent swearing-in ceremony makes her the first openly-gay chaplain of the North Carolina Army National Guard. She'll be able to perform ceremonies such as weddings and military funerals while also doing her most important job: counseling soldiers. But gay advocates say her home state of North Carolina is taking away protections for the LGBT community with House Bill 2. She says it is likely she may be performing same-sex marriage ceremonies for soldiers in the future.

members of the Arizona National Guard, including military recruiters were discovered working as “muscle” and “traffickers” for Mexican drug gangs .. About 12 National Guard were identified as suspects in one of the FBI’s biggest government corruption cases ever, which was almost totally ignored by government officials in Washington and major national news outlets On Friday in federal court, a non-commissioned officer (non-com) with the border-state Arizona’s Army National Guard was sentenced to federal prison for his role in protecting drug traffickers by using his military position to provide security for shipments of cocaine being transported from Mexico into the...

While the entire nation focuses on the growing threat of radical Islamic attacks in the West, there’s still an ongoing war on the southern border of the United States and it just got a lot worse. Thanks to Obama’s willingness to allow undocumented illegal immigrants into the U.S. military, a situation bound to happen finally did. A 34-year-old Arizona Army National Guardsman NCO by the name of Raul Portillo was recently busted in an undercover sting and accused of helping Mexican drug cartels safely transport large loads of cocaine and marijuana over the border. Portillo, a man suspected of living...

Proposed wilderness designations for parts of the Colorado mountains could threaten the Army's only high-altitude training site for helicopter pilots, an Army officer said Tuesday. The proposed "Hidden Gems" wilderness designations would put all of the high-altitude landing zones used by the High-Altitude Army Aviation Training Site off-limits, said Col. Joel Best, senior aviation officer for the Colorado Army National Guard. "We really can't afford to lose any of that land for the security of this nation," Best said. He spoke at a briefing for Colorado county commissioners and legislators. The site, known by the acronym HAATS, is the only...

Governor Sarah Palin recently tweeted: "Got Fed ok for Adjutant Gen Campbell, Command Sgt Major Choate and me to travel to our Ak Army Natl Guard troops on Wed. Glad to go to them"The 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate's tweet didn't say exactly where she would travel to visit the toops. But one has to wonder why she would need permission from the Feds to visit her own state's Guard troops unless she's talking... er, tweeting about going overseas to do it. The only other place we can think of that she might need federal permission to visit Alaska Army...

The Army National Guard reached its congressionally authorized end strength of 350,000 Citizen-Soldiers on March 30, six months earlier than originally projected, Army Guard officials have reported. "The strength of the Guard has been the amazing levels of retention among members of deployed units, surpassing all expectations," said Lt. Col. Diana Craun, the Army Guard’s deputy chief for strength maintenance. "Retention is highest among units that have returned from deployments, and retention is an essential element in end strength," she added. It is the first time that the Army Guard has been at full strength since 1999, Craun said. Officials...

The Colorado Army National Guard will maintain its annual high-altitude helicopter training on Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands in Eagle and Garfield counties at 3,000 hours. The Guard also has agreed to additional stipulations in order to protect wilderness areas, wildlife and livestock, the White River National Forest and BLM announced today. The military believes high-altitude combat training is vital for the protection of pilots and aircrews. In combat, aircrews trained in high-altitude aviation have a higher mission success rate as well as fewer accidents. As such, the Army had asked for 6,000 hours that could...

On Thanksgiving, I had the great privilege to be part of a large group of South Jersey folks who greeted and cheered for approximately 300 Army National Guard soldiers from Michigan and Missouri who were treated to their Thanksgiving meal at a catering facility in Clementon, NJ. These soldiers are undergoing training at Fort Dix, NJ, prior to their deployment "elsewhere" overseas. For the third year, a Camden County attorney, Eric Spevak, and members of Jewish War Veterans Post 126 of Cherry Hill, NJ, raised funds and arranged this Thanksgiving feast for National Guard troops undergoing such training at Ft....

In "Reinforce Baghdad" [op-ed, Sept. 12], William Kristol and Rich Lowry argue that the United States needs to deploy "substantially" more troops to Iraq to stabilize the country. Aside from the strategic dubiousness of their proposal -- Kristol and Lowry's piece might alternatively have been titled "Reinforcing Failure" -- there is a practical obstacle to it that they overlook: Sending more troops to Iraq would, at the moment, threaten to break our nation's all-volunteer Army and undermine our national security. This is not a risk our country can afford to take. In their search for additional troops and equipment for...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- The Army is reorganizing the National Guard but not cutting any troops, the civilian chief of the Army said Wednesday. "There is not going to be any reduction in the National Guard. Overall, the Army (and)... the active Guard and Reserve overall -- the military capability will continue to grow," said Army Secretary Francis Harvey. Media reports in December about plans to cut between 25,000 and 30,000 Guard troops to save money for the Army engendered strong protests from Capitol Hill and state governors. About a quarter of Army troops serving in Iraq are from...

A jury on Tuesday convicted an Orange County deputy sheriff of six theft counts in connection with $23,000 she received by mistake when she was called for National Guard duty before the Iraq invasion in 2003. Orange County Deputy Sheriff Tawanda McNeil, indicted on federal embezzlement charges in September, sat in silence in Orlando's federal courthouse while listening to the verdict. Jurors took nearly three hours after a two-day trial to find McNeil guilty of pocketing $8,291. McNeil, a four-year deputy suspended without pay two months ago, was acquitted of 12 other identical counts. "This case is about an Army...

Presenter: Special Assistant to The Secetary of The Army Ray Bubois; Army Vice Chief of Staff Richard Cody Wednesday, July 27, 2005 2:04 p.m. EDT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defense Department Special Briefing on Announcement of New Locations for The Active Duty Army's Modular Brigade Combat Teams MR. DUBOIS: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As most of you know, I'm Ray DuBois. In my various guises in this building, today I'm the special assistant to the secretary of the Army. You know Dick Cody, the vice chief of staff of the Army. We're going to discuss today with you all what we consider...

Hi Freepers, I figured this would be the best forum to ask this kind of question without being bothered with all the politics and such. Plus, you guys seem to be friendly and from time to time moderately trite. I'm trying to find out what would be the best way to have phone/web access while I am deployed for 18 months. I have been considering getting Satellite Phone with a data cable for my laptop from Iridium. I tried to figure out where my unit will be stationed. My battalion is an aviation unit, so I presume we will be...

OIL CITY -- Cheers and tears greeted the returning soldiers of Battery C, 1st Battalion, 107th Field Artillery of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in Oil City Thursday. The unit spent nearly 13 months on a tour of duty in Iraq. A crowd estimated at close to 1,000 lined State Street on Oil City's south side, braving frigid temperatures for hours waiting for the buses to bring the troops back home. Mixed in with the crowd were the families of Sgt. David Kradel, Spc. Rovert McIntyre and Spc. Thomas Fuller, three Titusville-area soldiers returning home from deployment. McIntyre, a 16-year...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Looking for new ways to bolster its thinning ranks, the Army National Guard is seeking legal authority to offer $15,000 bonuses to active-duty soldiers willing to join the Guard - up from $50 now. Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters Tuesday that the Guard is 15,000 soldiers below its normal strength of 350,000, and he expects further short-term declines despite recent gains from tripling re-enlistment bonuses for Guardsmen deployed abroad. If the Guard fails to return to its normal troop level of 350,000 by the end of the budget year...

A reporter traveling with a National Guard unit prodded one of its soldiers to ask Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the lack of armor for some U.S. military vehicles in Iraq, an exchange that made worldwide news Wednesday when the assembled troops cheered the question. Edward Lee Pitts of the Chattanooga Times Free Press told colleagues in an e-mail that he and members of the Tennessee Army National Guard now in Kuwait "worked on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armor" and that Spec. Thomas Wilson posed the question at his request. President Bush and Rumsfeld...

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (Army News Service, April 27, 2004) -- A few hundred Virginia Army National Guard Soldiers, who are preparing to serve in Afghanistan, would like to set the record straight. They are getting more equipment than they know what to do with. They are getting the best equipment that the Army can buy. They are getting the time and the opportunity to train with it. They do not consider themselves second-class Soldiers. In short, the 550 or so Soldiers in the 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry at Fort Bragg, N.C., are convinced they will look just like every other...

Guard Units Alerted For Iraq Duty Associated Press March 2, 2004 WASHINGTON - About 18,000 National Guard soldiers from four major units have gone on alert for likely deployment to late this year or in early 2005, the Pentagon said Monday. The announcement underscores the deepening involvement of Guard and Reserve forces in U.S.-led efforts to quell the insurgency in Iraq and stabilize the country. So far 45 Guard and Reserve members have been killed in action in Iraq and 42 more have died of nonhostile causes. The Guard units alerted are the 42nd Infantry Division headquarters from the...

The top family readiness programs in the reserve component for 2003 were honored today during the Defense Department's fourth annual awards ceremony in the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes. Master of ceremonies Marine Lt. Col. Ian Ferguson, of DoD's reserve affairs office, emphasized that family readiness is a key component of mission readiness. "Robust family readiness programs have greatly enhanced the deployablity of the Guard and Reserve," he noted. "One need only look at the last few years to recognize the critical role the reserve components play in supporting our nation. Improved family readiness programs and command emphasis have enabled Guard...