Full-time support for the Air National Guard is federally funded and subject to federal law and rules for its administration. Retirement benefits are a positive motivator for a career force, but also require clear rules for members to believe they can reach retirement. The purpose of this report is to establish the need to revise Air National Guard (ANG) regulations controlling Active Guard Reserve (AGR) members and to provide a history of full-time support in the National Guard. ANGR 35-03 Military Personnel Management needs to be revised to conform to federal laws concerning reservists on active duty. Promotion, professional military education, and active mission support should be centrally managed to use military duty members.

As the Air Force faces manpower end-strength reductions of approximately 40,000 active duty personnel, it becomes more difficult to support the air and space expeditionary force (AEF) construct using current force employment practices. These manpower reductions could leave the active component without sufficient end-strength personnel authorizations to support current operational requirements. The Air National Guard (ANG), on the other hand, will not undergo significant manpower reductions, but it will be affected by the Air Force structure planning under way in support of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and Base Realignments and Closure (BRAC) that calls for the retirement of a significant number of legacy aircraft. This could potentially leave the ANG with a large number of highly trained, highly experienced personnel with no aircraft to operate and support.

Recounts the Air National Guard's service and heritage as part of the nation's military forces. Traces the militia tradition and connects this story with the rising influence of air power. Outlines the Air National Guard's three primary missions: to reinforce active duty forces in wartime; to assist State governments responding to natural disasters and public emergencies; and to provide various community service functions. L.C. card 94-067989.

The Air National Guard (ANG) utilizes a cadre of full time personnel to provide its administration, training, and ongoing operational needs. This cadre, drawn from the ANG's traditional weekender personnel, is called the Full Time Support (FTS) system. FTS personnel are under one of two programs--Military Technician (MT) and Military Duty (MD). The older, more dominant MT program is federal civil service, and the newer MD program is military active duty. With entirely different compensation, benefit and work rule packages, the two programs are indiscriminately intermixed at most ANG installations. This paper describes the dual personnel system and discusses its potential for problems from the base-level point of view. Recommendations are made to individual personnel and commanders as to how to best live with the system, with suggestions to the program managers as to how the system could be made more palatable to the ANG at base level.

DOD has sought to reduce costs by assessing headquarters and overhead functions. Both the Army and Air Force have two reserve components -- a National Guard and Reserve -- that have at least 75 headquarters located throughout the United States, its territories, and overseas that manage subordinate units or perform overhead functions. These headquarters have a mix of full-time and part-time personnel. GAO was asked to review issues related to reserve-component headquarters. This report (1) discusses trends in funded positions at reserve component headquarters and (2) evaluates the extent to which DOD has established and implemented processes to efficiently size its reserve component headquarters. To do so, GAO reviewed statutes and DOD guidance, analyzed personnel data and headquarters assessments, and interviewed DOD and state officials.