Written on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 1:32pm by Christopher Smith | 4 Comments

Palin and The Alaskan National Guard

Since John McCain announced that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was his choice as a Vice Presidential running mate, many Republican talking heads have touted Palin’s role as Commander-In-Chief of the Alaska National Guard as prima facie evidence that she is ready to serve as the United States Commander-In-Chief.

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Certainly, her command of an actual military unit would supercede Obama’s experience as a leader, right?

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I guess it would, if she was, ya know, actually the commander of the Alaskan National Guard…which she isn’t.

National Guard units are administratively managed by the Department of Defense. The Governor must give consent when the units stationed in their states are called to active duty or to quell invasion or otherwise made part of the National Guard of The United States. It is a matter of course that Governors simply rubber stamp such requests from the DoD.

Operationally, the Governor can activate the Guard unit only after that governor has declared a state of emergency.

So, unless she declared a state of emergency in Alaska during her time in office, Governor Plain had no role whatsoever in equipping or commanding the Alaska National Guard or Alaska Air National Guard.

However, there are 25 states that have separate military units from the National Guard and they are typically called State Defense Forces. Alaska happens to be one of those states and she is in fact, a Commander-In-Chief of that military force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_State_Defense_Force

The Alaska State Defense Force (ASDF) is the modern force which carries on the traditions inherited from the Alaska Territorial Guard founded during World War II. Although the original territorial guard was disbanded, the new State of Alaska enacted a militia statute and in 1984 the Alaska State Guard was formed, which was renamed in 1987 as the Alaska State Defense Force. In 2004 the name “49th Military Police Brigade (49th MP BDE)” was also adopted for it, but it is still officially known mainly as the Alaska State Defense Force. It is administered under the department of Veterans Affairs but headed by a commander who reports directly to the governor as its commander-in-chief.

Now, this role as Commander of the equivalent of the Civil Air Patrol could be used to demonstrate her experience, but the McCain campaign and their surrogates have been touting her role as Commander-In-Chief of the National Guard, not this ragtag unit of veterans.

The video of her visiting troops in Kuwait has been looping on news channels for four days now, without much of an examination by the media or explanation as to the Governor’s role in commanding the National Guard.

What will come of this is that many passerby voters will have picked up the talking point that this woman has control of a military unit and they will not do the research to discover it is simply not true.

‘Tis a shame the world we live in nowadays.

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4 Comments

  1. Mitch says:
    September 4, 2008 at 4:48 am

    I take offense to the use of the term “ragtag unit of veterans”. Having spent two years in the NY State Defense Forces (and an MP unit), I can assure you that the men and women I served with are trained, ready and willing to deploy anywhere within the state our Commander (read Governor) so orders. Are we front line troops? Absolutely not. Nor are we intended to be. However; some of us are veterans, law enforcement, lawyers, professionels, etc. who swear the same oath and don our uniforms just as proudly as our National Guard and Reserve counterparts. Just thought you might like to know.

  2. mgear says:
    September 4, 2008 at 7:11 pm

    Additionally, according to a 12/10/06 article in the Herald Tribune:

    “While the 49th is an Alaska National Guard unit, Hildreth reports to Colonel Michael Yowell, commander of the 100th Missile Defense Brigade, based in Colorado.”

    So apparently even if Palin WAS in charge of the Alaska National Guard, she would NOT be Commander in Chief when it came to this “special” unit. Funny that the original blogger who wrote this up never mentioned that. Note that this blogger never actually said that Palin commanded the 49th. He or she only said that the 49th was in Alaska. Hmm…

    It’s scary how fast misinformation can travel. This particular misinformation already appears on dozens of websites (often plagiarized, I may add).

  3. Sudsy says:
    March 9, 2009 at 1:26 pm

    “this role as Commander of the equivalent of the Civil Air Patrol could be used to demonstrate her experience”

    I’m a member of the 3rd BN, 49th MP BDE, ASDF. I’m a veteran of the USAF Tactical Air Control Party and deployed to Iraq twice with the US Army providing Close Air Support on the battlefield. I can tell you that the ASDF and Civil Air Patrol do vastly more than you sneer at. ASDF is a police agency for the State of Alaska, every member trains to become a Constable or is a Constable (even if the mission seems like it might change). In effect, we are like many Reserve Police Officers in other states, trained to the same level as regular Police officers but only called up in emergencies. Civil Air Patrol does a lot up here in Alaska also, with the highest per capita of private pilot licensees, they the provide critical role in search and rescue… But then if you don’t live in Western State with wide open countryside to crash in, you’d never know….

    As a combat veteran, I can tell you ASDF might not be the most highly trained unit I’ve worked with, but it is far from the least trained unit I’ve ever worked with. It is a professional military organization worthy of its ancestors the Minutemen and Alaska Territorial Guard (look up the Aleutian Campaign in World War II and Kiska Task Force).

    Also, if you look up the relevant National Guard Regulations and applicable laws, the Governor is the Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard and along with State Legislature, has the same powers Congress does for the US military in approving and commissioning officers, setting policy, and the like unless the National Guard is ‘Federalized’ and actively serving a Federal tasking.

 

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