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Louisiana Guard Transformation

National Guard Bureau News

Release Date: 3/2/2004

By Rick Breitenfeldt, National Guard Bureau

BATON ROUGE, La. - Nearly a year has passed since National Guard leaders from the 54 states and U.S. territories gathered together in Columbus, Ohio to listen to the chief of the National Guard Bureau, Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum's historic initiative for transforming their organization.

In the weeks and months since that announcement, states and territories have each taken slightly different approaches to the chief's vision of developing ways to deploy more quickly, streamlining the integration with the active components and organizing state headquarters into joint commands.

Louisiana National Guard officials started immediately with both the analysis and planning process to ensure the Guard remains a reliable, ready, relevant and accessible force for the 21st century.

"I think we've run with it straight forward and fast," said Col. Ben Soileau, deputy chief of staff for the Louisiana National Guard.

Soileau said some of benefits of the transformation are already starting to make themselves clear.

During this year's national championship college football game held in New Orleans, for example, the Louisiana Guard was tasked with assisting law enforcement officials with security and also providing access control into the stadium.

Col. Ronnie D. Stuckey, director of operations for the Louisiana Guard, was responsible for putting together several Special Reaction Teams (SRT) of both soldiers and airmen to accomplish this mission.

Prior to becoming a joint staff, Stuckey said they would have all been thinking Army for a mission like this because of the substantially larger number of soldiers than airmen. Now, Stuckey added, they try to pull from both sides of the house.

"The Air fell right in with the Army and both understood the joint mission and that we were all one organization," said Stuckey. "We were not a green organization or a blue organization. It was a purple operation with one command and control cell and one mission."

"With this joint concept, we've institutionalized something that we've always been doing," said Soileau, "and because we've institutionalized it, it has made everyone's life a little bit easier."

Col. Stephen C. Dabadie, Louisiana National Guard chief of staff said performing joint mission requires a joint staff that supports both the commander and adjutant general, in addition to supporting those units that are performing the mission.

"This has gone much beyond just signage on doors or billets," said Dabadie. "We have truly taken state area commands (STARC) and the Headquarters for the Air National Guard and combined them into a Joint Force Headquarters."

"Active duty forces operate in a joint environment already," said Soileau, "and all we're doing now with the Guard is aligning ourselves up with the rest of the Department of Defense."

Soileau said, in the true spirit of jointness, dialogues have also been initiated with other services such as the Navy Reserve and the Coast Guard, which are essential to a coastal state like Louisiana.

"We're getting away from some Guard specific terminology and now speaking the same language," said Soileau. "We are now a joint operation and we will have to work together in the future."

Although there have been some growing pains associated with the changes, Dabadie said his staff in Louisiana did everything possible to minimize disruptions.

"We did it deliberately and we did it slowly," said Dabadie. "Ultimately, our job as a joint staff is to support soldiers and airmen, and now we are clearly best configured to do that."