Guard’s loss of hardware in war causes dire situation

By Lisa Mascaro

Sunday, Jan. 14, 2007 | 7:15 a.m.

WASHINGTON - When a Nevada National Guard transportation unit from Henderson returned from Iraq last year, it was without the backbone of its operation: its trucks.

Dozens of tractor-trailers, Humvees and other equipment the Nevada Guard needs to do its job have been left in Iraq, contributing to a nationwide depletion of resources that is creating what the Guard's commander in Washington has called a dire situation.

Experts say that after the war ends, the nation must spend $75 billion to rebuild the military after operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Guard estimates that it alone needs up to $24 billion nationwide for equipment at the rate it is now being lost.

Giles Vanderhoof, who led the Nevada Guard as adjutant general until retiring in 2005, said he saw the problem early in the war: "I was more sending things over than getting things back."

Troops were told to leave their equipment in Iraq for the next guys, he said. Vehicles that did come home often had problems. Desert sand "just eats everything up" in ways the Nevada desert does not.

Not since World War II has the Pentagon leaned on the Guard the way it has after 9/11. In Nevada, nearly one-third of the state's 3,400 guardsmen have served in the war - running supply routes, guarding Abu Ghraib prison and conducting air cargo and reconnaissance missions.

These are troops who already make do with the "leftovers, hand-me-downs," said Kristine Munn, a Guard spokeswoman in Washington.

Although many Guard units were sent to Iraq without adequate vehicle body armor, Nevada troops managed to up-armor their Humvees before being deployed, Vanderhoof said.

Some of the more than 250 Nevada Guardsmen in Iraq today are on their second tour of duty, some as volunteers. Three Nevada Guardsmen have died, among 26 war casualties from Nevada.

As President Bush plans to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq, the Guard will continue to play a role. The day after Bush's speech, the Pentagon announced the Guard will be expected to deploy more quickly.

But that requires training. And training requires equipment.

Maj. Gen. Cindy Kirkland, who replaced Vanderhoof at the helm of the Nevada Guard, said her troops have replenished 85 percent of the equipment left in Iraq and Afghanistan. That includes most of the more than 50 trucks left in Iraq by the Henderson transportation unit, the 1864th. The few trailers the unit still needs are part of a nationwide shortage.

Most of Nevada's helicopters are home or on their way, with the exception of the one that was shot down over Afghanistan in 2005, killing Chief Warrant Officer John Flynn and Sgt. Patrick Stewart. It will not be replaced; it's part of a previously planned reduction, she said.

The cavalry unit now serving in Iraq did not take its tanks overseas. The 593rd Transportation Company now serving also left its trucks in Nevada.

Kirkland is confident her troops have enough equipment to train and deploy - even if they've become more creative in the way they use their gear. Soldiers can practice driving convoys with fuel trucks instead of the missing big rigs. They rearrange schedules. If troops are called up for Iraq or a domestic disaster, they will borrow from elsewhere to fill the gaps.

Before the war, the Guard nationwide had about two-thirds of the equipment that Pentagon planners said it needed, according to Munn. Now after nearly four years of war, the Guard is down to 40 percent of its equipment.

"If we continue at the pace we are at, we're in a dire situation," Munn said.

Kirkland has been able to replace much of the Nevada Guard's gear, not because of Pentagon planning but in large part thanks to earmarks - the special spending requests slipped into legislation by the congressional delegation, led by Democratic Sen. Harry Reid.

The delegation won $6.4 million for trucks and Humvees in the 2007 defense appropriations bill passed late last year. The year before, it secured $2.8 million for trucks to supplement the Guard's then-$140 million budget.

The delegation also secured more than $5 million last fall to outfit the Guard's C-130 aircraft with missile detection systems as well as improved communications systems. The Air Force has these, but the Guard goes without.

Kirkland is trying to get those new systems installed on her planes before the Guard unit in Reno is again called up for duty.

"We certainly wouldn't be in the position we're in without the help of our congressional delegation," she said. As the adjutant general prepares her fiscal year 2008 funding requests, she plans to put the rest of the lost gear "on the list."

The Nevada Guard has gotten no word yet on whether it will return to Iraq.

Democrats, led by Reid as the Senate majority leader, have vowed to seek the $75 billion the military needs to rebuild.