Paul Evans and Marty Wilde
Evans is a Democratic legislator representing District 20-Monmouth in the Oregon House. Wilde is a Democratic legislator representing District 11-Central Lane and Linn counties in the Oregon House. Both have served more than 20 years in the Oregon National Guard.
Oregon has never relied more on the National Guard. The changing face and missions of the state military force require us to take a hard look at how we support our troops. As Winston Churchill put it, “To be a reservist is to be twice a citizen.” We can best honor their commitment by training, supporting and equipping them to meet the demands we place on them.
In our combined 47 years of service in the military, we’ve seen profound changes in both the composition and the missions of the Oregon National Guard. When we joined the Guard in the 1990s, it didn’t reflect Oregon’s diversity--it excluded women from combat roles and LGBTQ people from service. Similarly, the missions we trained for reflected a Cold War mentality. We weren’t going to get called up unless Russian tanks came through the Fulda Gap in Germany.
Since then, we’ve seen great improvements in inclusion, quality and responsiveness to Oregon’s needs. We both served overseas repeatedly in support of the War on Terror, from hunting war criminals in Bosnia to directing air support in Iraq. With changing personnel policies, the Guard is moving away from concerns about creating a Spartan caste, separate from society, and toward a model where the military reflects the society it serves and therefore does a better job. In addition to its enduring roles as a strategic reserve in defending the homeland from attack and preparing for a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, the Oregon Guard has added in the last 18 months the work of distributing personal protective equipment, helping get unemployment benefits to the people who need them and, most recently, supporting hospitals overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases.
With these new missions come new requirements to train, equip and support our Guard members. To accomplish any mission effectively, the Guard must be trained to do it. The federal government pays for almost 100% of the costs of training, pay and benefits for the Guard. But it trains them for national security missions, not the civil support missions we increasingly ask our Guard members to do. Similarly, our equipment and technology – typically hand-me-downs from active-duty units – are often outdated or simply aren’t the right tools for the job. Training and equipping the Guard for the continuing demands of state missions requires the state to invest in these missions, not just to continue to rely upon federal funding.
We should re-envision support for the Guard as well. Until recently, Guard members in Oregon lacked job protections for the most common kind of domestic activation. While we patched that hole with House Bill 2231 this session, the reality for veterans is still dark. Oregon spends about $50 per year per veteran on support services, while the federal government spends about $10,000 per year per veteran. We’ve lost too many veterans to suicide. Our state policy should invest in making sure all veterans get the support they need.
Sometimes, the best support is providing a more appropriate civilian alternative to mobilization. For example, recently, two different hospitals requested 30 registered nurses from the Oregon Guard. But what Oregon needs is greater investment in educating and training additional nurses. Using Guard members for this work is not sensible. We have only 19 Guard nurses, and they already have civilian health care jobs. We can’t expect the Guard to cover for underinvestment in nursing education.
Similarly, we continue to lack a comprehensive statewide volunteer database where civilians could indicate their interest in helping in an emergency. We’ve seen how well volunteers can work when well organized, but it takes an investment to organize them for action. The federal government already has such a database, but the state does not. More prudent state action to prioritize its creation, ideally in the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, is needed.
Money spent on readiness for an emergency often seems wasteful when there’s not a disaster happening. But failure to prepare, train and equip the Guard for the unexpected can lead to devastating consequences. The Oregon National Guard has been there for the people of Oregon and will always be. Now it is time for us to be there for them.
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September 05, 2021 at 08:31PM
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Opinion: Changing missions for Oregon National Guard demand greater support from state - OregonLive
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