Guard units in the U.S. are suffering severe equipment shortages which will affect their ability to respond to emergencies in their home States, such as Katrina.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
With Guard and Reserve units, you can end up with a lot of people from one part of the country dying in one day, and that gets people's attention.
During the aftermath of Katrina, National Guard troops were positioned on every block to establish a sense of safety and source of help for the people in need. They did not leave communities until people were safe and sound.
If you have a sudden emergency, earthquake, hurricane, you name it, we want to be able to have a National Guard officer able to command federal forces.
The National Guard has served America as both a wartime force and the first military responders in times of domestic crisis. Hundreds of times each year, the nation's governors call upon their Guard troops to respond to fires, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters.
With our Reserve and Guard units playing increasingly important roles in the war on terror and in Iraq, it is unacceptable to make them jump through any unnecessary hurdles.
Without the Guard and Reserve, our active duty troops could hardly deploy.
The Home Guards are required to come in at once and deliver up their arms, those who fail to do so will be regarded as enemies of the Government and treated accordingly.
We have problems with our physical security, operational security through to management.
I think in the wake of Katrina, the Coast Guard may well have been the only entity or agency that came out of that exercise free of fault and free of blame.
When I get the morning report on security, I call those battalions in the regions where there are problems.
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