During recent protests following the death of george floyd. Is a member of the joint chief of staff and nations top officer for overseeing the army and the air force National Guard. Combined total strength of nearly halfmillion airmen and soldiers under his supervision and command. He is a distinguished airmen and fire and formally of the air ghforce. In the early 1990s which the National Guards in a number of physicians in the United States and around the world. Sometimes in more of a guarded capacity or parttime capacity. Sometimes fulltime and for the last eight years has been at the leadership of the National Guard here in washington. Were really privileged to have him today be prepared for his very well earned retirement and getting back to the rotc great country into the air force in the graduation from the program and it was 1981 so hes been serving his country long and very well despite his youthful appearance, he has been it at it quite a while. We wish him well. And we look forward to rich conversation today at the end of which we will be able to handle some of your questions if you wish to these events at the d brookings. Edu protect first were going to hear from him with opening thoughts on the stateoftheart. And also on its admirable and much appreciated help in responding to the covid19 crisis in the United States. Will not be our only topic but also an opportunity to think broadly in the nation. With the return of the competition and other challenges around the globe. So general think again again for joining us and without further ado, over to you. Thank you for having me talk about the National Guard. Ive been at it for very long time and i learned a lot. I have experienced complete transformation of the National Guard brings in terms of combat. Apabilities and from a strategic preserve. And to the roles you played every day. Go back to the beginning of the year, i dont know that we couldve predicted what couldve happened in the next six months as you all earlier january, te topic was potential the attacks. Everybody remembers that and two months later, we had the california National Guard dropped the coronavirus test kits on a cruise ship that was anchored off of san francisco. There was even before the coronavirus became a national pandemic. And the national emergency. Two months later, yet again, mr. And find spread unrest. And in midst of all of these headlines,ke also national disaster, as we will probably do with her is floods in michigan, tornadoes in tennessee just to name it you predict this is been crazier is just now early july. I think in the past six months, if you look at the totality including our federal missions. More than 120,000 members of the National Guards were mobilized and doing in our operations for the commanders. 45000 more during a covid19 operation in every state, territory in the district of columbia and again, 45000 more were doing operations in support of the civil disturbance operations and 33 states. All across the country, the National Guard was aiding the American People delivering personal protective equipment in some cases they were manufacturing personal protectiveve equipment. Staffing the banks and protecting protesters in the First Amendment rights when they are purchasing peacefully for ensuring the best practices that we learn quickly how to do these things. And also a time of great flexibility and Great Innovation and showcasing capabilities from the National Guard. Doing all of these when we sustain our federal commitments. And combatant commands around the world. And none of our title ten for federal emissions were interrupted or disturbed. Thankfully these operations seem to be repeated but covid19 appears to be on the rise in some cases and theres no signs of operational to both production and our future as we look at the relatively future. In the events of the past six months, the role of the reserve component in my case, the case of the National Guard as you mentioned which is about 20 percent of all of the department of defense. Sustained rotation part of the army and air force and thats a good thing. From the full Spectrum Operations to war and everything in between, we have become part of the army and air force to do their federal mission and itar needs to continue. It led to other things but ill get to that in a bit, maybe answer the questions. I think what we have learned is the strength and experience cost, its cost structure and we are not being used in the structure, the ability, the posture reserve component for structure in the future against known requirements i think iss something we should continue to do and leverage. It builds readiness for us and when you do that, it allows us to be predictable, our Business Model and people who have other careers and employers to let them know train to the appropriate level. Leverage us more against the requirement and in some cases we do that but theres opportunity to do more. The third thing, in the old model we can take new equipment and put it in and shake out the old stuff and put it into the reserve components and the mom does not work. You must be deployable, sustainable and interoperable for your 11 irrelevant in any scenario. Something i work hard for as we move forward with this model. The last thing, his dark times if we stand up in a another branch of service and i do believe theres advantages to taking the model of 2 the natiol guard and leveraging that and creating a National Guard component of the space force. We been in mission for 25 years and i want to make sure one of the most important things we do, a culture of training and development of our Army Officers are identical in the army National Guard and remain as part of the space force so adopting these considerations can free up acting component structures, we make it ready and it is our piece of the force, so by doing that, by using a known deployment puts requirements against the reserve component is available for training, i think it frees up a more efficient active component to be used so the operational model to talk about, its kind of our model and people seem to think of us as a slower version of the army and air force. In the air force, with proven time and again the train at the same levels as our components and while we are not as fast, clear pretty close if you want to move someplace. On the army side, it is slower, less readiness built intentionally, we dont use it until we use it. Thats a good thing because its less expensive to build and as you build it, you dont buy tomatoes and bushels because you cant eat them fast enough, they will rot. It allows us to determine assigned mission readiness, i think its something we should leverage. He may not one to send the airborne to deal with an issue and people in africa you can chain of reserve components in a lesser rotational requirement. Thats important. The Operational Force, provide strategic to the army and air force and sunday the space force, it will happen eventually but its a good investment. It allows us to sustain combat capability and capacity terms for the potential of major war and allows us to save money on an active component, its responsive, fast and ready but expensive. It allows us to save money to modernize the force and have new and needed weapons we need in the future. A potential for models in korea, its a good thing when you consider using the reserve tmponents to do that. Modernization the ability to modernize the force is important and i think, it was a National Guard unit. Vermont, the second unit to get the 35, the air force sees that and recognizes that the same thing will be trued whether it helicopters or other capabilities the army has. What weve learned over time is an active component no longer having a piece of equipment and it begins to die, it cuts back on the money, they dont intend to maintain it butno it will mae hard Financial Decisions over time that will force them to not sustain the equipment and when you cant, then becomes an deployable or non deployable and it becomes a burden. Have been too subtle in my support component, i want to make sure we been part of the air force 25 years. One of the things the National Guard brings is, it brings structure to our services. You cant do that with individual appointees and single people, need Unit Structures to be mobilized and increase the size of an capacity of the force and thats what we bring. We bring the attributes on display for the last six months, we can also be cast by our governors to do any number of things and youve seen the infantry officers running through banks and without was things they were trained to do, they can be cast organized at every level if they can do any task our nation needs them to do. With the different tasks throughout covert operations and we could get into more if you want. Shownst six months have and if you want to get into it, if you go back to 9 11, sustained deployment, more than a million members of the National Guard deployed into the combat zone. Many of them multiple times. Our formations have gone, weve sustained but continuously 30,000 men and women in the National Guard, deployed at any one time. In the homeland, southwest Border Operations continue with things he seen in new york if you been too Grand Central museum, keeping opportunities from happening. On display lately, the covert operations 32000 men or women doing that and thankfully, civilians are beginning to recede although we are posture right now to respond in support of our governors and Law Enforcement as it turned sideways and our system needs it. In fact, we are always ready and always there and imm proud of this, we were called in a recent article, a myriad of things for the pandemic, the full spectrum more in the event a joy in my life. I say thanks and i turn a ovary to you for questions. Fantastic. Thank you for the framing and i want to ask a couple of questions about card Going Forward but i want to buildt on some of what you touched on looking back on the guard and the ways we thought about it and how it has evolved over your career partly because you are soon to retire and youve seen so much but also, i think it helps dramatize for the nation Going Forward, we know we are getting into potentially a difficult fiscal environment to say the least after covid. This is not a partisan issue, people on both sides understand there may needs to be pressure in the years ahead. Even if it doesnt transpire the next four months and i should have noting, people working on various campaigns, this is not a partisan question. Its an awareness the country may be looking for ways to build a more economical military in the years ahead i want to b ask you about ways in which the guard can contribute to that, perhaps becoming an overall fracture from the armed forces but to set that off, we should spend more time on the history youve lived because coming out of vietnam, before we were old enough to be in the military ourselves, the concept of the course which basically was a decision the guard and reserve should be integral to any major American Military diplomats would never have this division between an active force that was not known or understood, not integrated with communities back home and the rest of society we have the concept of a total force with the reserve may be more than the guard, but both playing a role in providing capabilities active force to make doesnt have. Alluding to a second concept which is the old idea of strategic c reserve, the guard think the backup especially in the cold war if we have a long fight with the soviet union and in those days, the guard had all equipment, it wasnt necessarily anywhere near as good as the active force, the present thought of the initial response, it was more like your third or fourth wave and then we saw especially after 9 11, the guard becomes an operational part of the military that you use guard units because they had the same capabilities are as good capabilities as the active force and they could help give a break to the active force, they could spell it and does it more economically so that the overall lay of the land. I wanted to ask you if you want to comment further but also specifically, how good has the guard become in being almost as capable or as capable ase the active force . Imagine desert storm for the transition in your career going from active to National Guard. Theres still a debate especially in the army about how well the National Guard brigades could have performed in desert storm, a fight about whether they should have used National Guard in that conflict. Theres still debate about whether the brigades performed as well the tougher sectors. What we know especially about the army third for tarter to maintain unit readiness, what do ouu know about the ability ofly National Army brigade to be just as good as an active army brigade . Beak to how good the guard has become today. We are completely Different Forces than the one i joined almost 30 years ago. We are more ready, disciplined, we have become, predominantly air force. We become exactly with the air force demanded we become. Part of that was a great reduction in the air force, coupled with continuous e deployment cycles in middle et they needed the National Guard to become part of the deployable part that could go. When we deployed, we deployed with our own commanders. I like to think coupled with 1991, the air force beginning smaller, many of the active components migrated into the interNational Guard and we brought this sense of more disciplined air force, if you will. A tactically oriented air force, more connected to the active components than before. Id like to think sometimes i think it was just the National Guard but as i look, there used to be a golf course on this particular base, theres no golf course anymore, theres no time for golf, people are focused on strategy and developing officers and less time for those kinds of things but when i left, i said im going to make the best Fighter Squadron in the world. As a weapons officer who would not have that goal and i got to my place and said theres a bunch of great Fighter Pilots but i had six fulltime people in the units, the rest were parttime. Maintainers are very experienced but its been a very long time and we are not going to do this. I had doctors and bankers and farmers people who came parttime, it is fulltime work to get to where you can employ weapon systems to the degree air force needs them. We now have that, theres many more fulltime people in the air National Guard and there used to be. Its a better equipped, you are equipped and its a better, more disciplined capable force than the one i joined. The army side, id talked with them, to train an army brigade combat team, its a monster undertaking of logistics, operations collectively to maneuver 3500 people and get all integrated together to work and practice. Six of them, you can go anywhere, do your mission from your home base. He army not so much. Into pieces but to do the collective training required the army permission, it is hard to do. Time is one of the biggest limitations we have as members of the guard reserve, watch some of these folks in the brigade and as they work up to go to a National Training rotation, the commander from the company commanders, they will have entire lives, accountant or sales or doctors or whatever theyre doing, you will have to 90 or 100 days to get to that culminating readiness of it. It is hard work. There is no similar mechanism to watch the combat train. A the army demanded same standards, same fitness, rigorous application of Training Resources toward individual training statuses and collective statuses and we are better, more disciplined force and we may not be able to get out the door as fast as an active duty army brigade stand, maybe we take 90 or 100 days which sounds like a tng time but when you talky about the movement to a war zone, the equipment that hast to ship, it takes a long time. One of the things i like most about this rotational Operational Force with become on the army and air side, its mobilization, its a National Strategic capability we need to exercise and use. If you cant pick up and move if you dont and if practice those kinds of things, when you need to to go to china or russia, its impossible to do so they need to be practice and its anotheran reason to contine to do it but you are right, as we watched last year, we saw some of the folks forces out of syria, moving into the eastern part of syria and the National Guard had just got into kuwait and they were the first ones into syria with the combat team and there were comments all over the place about the world flipping upside down, National Guard in syria and active army on the southwest border and what really came was the comments from hey, the guard is ready and trained, they are a Different Force than people think of the vietnam preera of our existen existence. They are ready to do it a