U.S. Army National Guard photo by Spc. Emmanuel Gibson
By Maj. Gen. John B. Hashem, USA (Ret.), ROA CEO/Executive Director
The first American deaths in the current conflict with Iran did not come from the active-duty force. They came from the Reserve Components. During Operation Epic Fury, U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers assigned to the 103rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command were killed in an unmanned aircraft attack at the Port of Shuaiba, Kuwait while supporting joint operations in the region. These Soldiers were not waiting for mobilization after the war began. They were already forward, sustaining the joint force.
Soon after, tragedy struck again within the Reserve Components when a KC-135 Stratotanker from the Ohio Air National Guard crashed during a mission, killing six Airmen. At the same time, Air National Guard fighters have been flying combat sorties as part of the opening phase of the campaign. F-35As from the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing, diverted from other operational missions, moved into theater and joined the air campaign against Iranian targets.
Taken together, these events illustrate something many Americans, and even some policymakers, still fail to fully appreciate: the National Guard and Reserve are no longer a force waiting in reserve. They are an operational force integrated into the Joint Force and present wherever the nation requires military capability.
For much of the Cold War, the Reserve Components were structured as a strategic reserve. The concept was simple: if the United States faced a large-scale conflict, the active force would fight first while the Guard and Reserve mobilized, trained, and prepared to reinforce them. The nation expected warning before major war, and the structure of the force reflected that assumption.
That model no longer reflects how the United States fights. Over the past several decades, the military deliberately built what is now known as the Total Force. Under that concept, the Guard and Reserve are not separate from the operational force, they are an integral part of it. Entire mission sets across the Joint Force depend heavily on Reserve Component units. Sustainment, logistics, transportation, engineering, medical support, air mobility, aerial refueling, civil affairs, and many cyber capabilities reside largely within the Guard and Reserve.
Operation Epic Fury reflects that operational reality. Army Reserve sustainment units are in theater moving and supporting the force. Air National Guard fighters are flying combat sorties. Guard tanker wings from Kansas and New Hampshire are refueling aircraft across the region, extending the reach of the air campaign. Army National Guard units from states such as Wisconsin are deployed supporting operations in Iraq and Kuwait. Across the theater, Guard and Reserve formations are moving the force, sustaining the force, and fighting when required.
No military deploys without logistics. No air campaign functions without mobility and refueling. Combat power must be moved, supplied, and sustained from the first hours of a campaign, and much of that capability resides in the Guard and Reserve.
The Army Reserve Soldiers killed in Kuwait were part of the sustainment backbone that keeps the Joint Force operating. The Airmen lost in the Ohio Air National Guard tanker crash were part of the mobility enterprise that allows American airpower to reach across oceans and continents. The Vermont Air National Guard pilots flying combat sorties represent another dimension of this integration. Guard pilots, maintainers, and support personnel are not waiting for a later phase of war, they are part of the opening phase of combat operations.
This is what the Total Force looks like in practice. The Joint Force does not deploy first and then call the Guard and Reserve later. It deploys together. Active, Guard, and Reserve units operate side by side from the beginning of a campaign because the structure of the force requires it.
Citizen-servicemembers move between civilian life and military service while remaining ready to deploy anywhere in the world. They bring expertise from industry, medicine, engineering, aviation, transportation, and technology into the force and maintain the vital connection between the military and the communities it serves.
Yet while the Guard and Reserve have evolved into an operational force, some of the policies that govern them still reflect an older model of a strategic reserve. Guard and Reserve personnel routinely deploy alongside active-duty forces and assume the same missions and risks, but statutory authorities, duty statuses, and benefits structures do not always reflect that operational reality.
As the nation relies more heavily on the Guard and Reserve to operate at the front edge of conflict, policy must keep pace with how the force is actually employed.
The events of the past weeks make one point unmistakably clear: when the United States goes to war, the Guard and Reserve are not waiting beyond the edge of military operations. They are already there.