Misuse of National Guard in civilian law enforcement operations

Prepared Remarks by Major General William Enyart, USA (Ret), former Adjunct General for Illinois National Guard, and former Congressman (IL-12)

Good morning, Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Durbin and Senators. My name is William Enyart. I am a retired major general. The last five years of my service I was the Adjutant General, or commanding general for the 13,000 soldiers and airmen of the Illinois National Guard. I had Guardsmen in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We had the largest combat deployment since World War II.

I served nearly thirty-six years in the military. I come from a proud family of veterans. My father, brother and I served a total of nearly sixty-four years. We each served as enlisted members. I was commissioned an officer in 1982. After military retirement, I was elected to Congress where I served on the House Armed Services Committee. 

I recite these facts so that you understand I have experience at the enlisted, officer, general officer and policymaker level. This experience forms the basis of what I will tell you today.

I’m here to talk with you about appropriate uses of the National Guard. The National Guard has a proud history of service to our nation from the Revolutionary War to the World Wars to today’s conflicts.

The National Guard is the best trained military reserve force in the world. There were times during the Iraq war that the Army National Guard provided more than half of our combat power in Iraq. 

We train in military skills, not police skills, to provide part-time soldiers for our nation’s defense. 

Our other, equally important, role is as a trained and ready force for the governors.  In our state role, we deploy to assist in disaster recovery. We deployed  to New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina, to Illinois for Mississippi River floods, to St. Louis for tornadoes, the Nevada Air National Guard for forest fires to name but a few.

You have heard what we are. Here’s what we are not: we are not  trained as police officers. Our soldiers may receive a couple of hours a year in civil disturbance training. We do not receive the months and years of training required to become qualified police officers. 

We are not trained to perform arrests, to perform traffic stops, to perform investigations, to follow up on crime tips. 

The calls to mobilize the Guard fail to understand this, nor do they understand the costs to mobilize the Guard.

There is the cost to the taxpayer. The number I’ve heard for Los Angeles is $120 million for 4,000 Guardsmen for sixty days. That’s a high price tag for a stop gap measure. How many police officers could have been hired, trained and put on the streets for $120 million? 

There is the cost to the Department of Defense and to FEMA. Every dollar spent on a misguided use is a dollar that can’t be spent on training or equipping these soldiers. That can’t be spent on their real mission. A dollar that isn’t there for disaster response when the next hurricane hits New Orleans or the next tornado levels St. Louis.

And there’s the hidden cost to the soldiers and their families. These are part-time soldiers. They have jobs at home. They have educations they are missing. They have families who rely on them. Employers who rely on them.

Let me speak to you from a Guardsman’s heart. Sunday, my pastor at the Presbyterian Church in Belleville, Illinois, spoke about trust. He was speaking of the trust between God and man. Let me speak to you of a soldier’s trust. 

A soldier trusts his fellow soldiers. He trusts his leadership. He trusts the political leadership of this country to send him on missions, whether wartime or peacetime that make sense. Missions that don’t waste his time or his life. That don’t waste his sacrifices.

A soldier’s family trusts that their sacrifices, their loss of that soldier for a day, a week, a month, maybe forever, isn’t a waste.

Employers trust that that Guardsman’s mission is necessary. That it’s important. That it protects our nation.

Communities trust. Trust that our soldiers serve our nation. Defend our nation. Defend justice and democracy. Trust that a soldier’s mission is to protect them, not police them.

To misuse our troops whether Guard or active duty is to breach those bonds of trust.

When these soldiers are doing what they signed up for - defending our great nation or helping their neighbors recover from a natural disaste- they don’t mind sacrificing wages, missing a child’s birthday, losing months away from school. But when they’re bagging trash in Washington DC, they lose trust. Worse their employers and families lose trust. 

It took a generation for the Guard to recover from the stain of Guardsmen shooting and killing college students at Kent State. We are one trigger pull away from another such tragedy. Don’t let it happen.

National Guard forces are for a real emergency, not a band aid for long-standing problems that need a long-term solution.