Forward Observer: Another Seat at the Table

What happened to Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., right after Hurricane Katrina swept away his house on the Gulf Coast and drowned his 5th District goes a long way toward explaining why a growing number of lawmakers are pushing to increase the military clout of the National Guard by giving its chief at the Pentagon another star and making him a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The night after Katrina hit and knocked out regular phone service, Taylor used a satellite phone to call Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon. "I said, 'General, you know I'm not the kind to b.s. This is horrible. We desperately need your help, and we need your help right now,'" Taylor recalled.

"His response was, 'You got my help. Let me run it by the Army.' Even though he is an extremely influential lieutenant general, he still had to coordinate it with the Army."

Then Taylor called Adm. Mike Mullen, the chief of naval operations, and reported: "It's terrible. We have no communications. My hospital has been under water. If someone has a heart attack they are going to die. I've got to have a hospital." Taylor asked for all the prepared meals, generators, tents and potable water that could be found.

"He says, 'I'm sending you two ships right now. The assault ship Bataan [with] a phenomenal hospital on board; helicopters, extra food. And I'm sending the hospital ship Comfort.' It was an instantaneous response of, 'This is what I'm doing.'

"Gen. Blum was great to us. Adm. Mullin was great to us. But when there's an attack on the homeland, and it's a question of when, not if, it's going to look a lot like Hurricane Katrina" during the chaotic aftermath, he said. "And the chief of the National Guard Bureau is going to have to be on an equal footing with the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Army because he is the best qualified to respond" to homeland disasters.

Besides, the chief of the National Guard Bureau is responsible for and accountable to all the American people, not a single armed service, Taylor argued.

"He represents the heart of America," Taylor said. "He is that unique bridge between the states and the nation. The rest of the chiefs represent a federal entity: the United States Navy, the United States Army, the United States Marine Corps, the United States Air Force. He represents the Mississippi National Guard, the Alabama National Guard and the National Guard collectively.

"It is just not who he is but what he is. He was uniquely qualified to be a problem-solver for us, but would have been even better if he had had a fourth star on his shoulder, had he been on an equal footing with the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

The National Guard has demonstrated so much political clout in Congress through the years that presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, have played the Washington Monument game with it to lower the top lines of their defense budgets. That is, they traditionally low-ball the funding in their defense budgets for the Guard, knowing that Congress on its own will heap on additional money, just as it would do if the president did not put enough money in his budget to keep the Washington Monument open to visitors.

It seems to me that as the Guard continues to demonstrate it has the best firemen and equipment to respond to disasters, whether caused by Mother Nature or terrorists, lawmakers -- no matter the president's position -- will conclude that it would be political suicide back home to vote against giving the Guard chief a seat at the Joint Chiefs' table. I asked Taylor about this.

"The chief of the National Guard Bureau will be a member of the Joint Chiefs one day," Taylor replied. "It probably won't happen this year, although it should happen." The Bush administration at the moment is fighting Taylor and his allies in Congress on this issue. Why?

"I think it's resistance to change," said Taylor, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Projection Forces Subcommittee and a former Coast Guard reservist. "Here these guys are changing everything under the sun, not necessarily for the better," he said of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration executives. "And when something that makes sense comes along, they are resistant to change it."

Last Tuesday, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England expressed the administration's opposition to making the chief of the National Guard Bureau a member of the Joint Chiefs in these words: "It is essential to recognize that the National Guard is not a separate military service. Rather, the National Guard is an integral part of the U. S. Army and U. S. Air Force, and any future organizational changes need to reflect this vital feature."

Sorry, Mr. England and Mr. Rumsfeld. Osama bin Laden and Hurricane Katrina have given you a losing hand. For years Pentagon leaders opposed giving the commandant of the Marine Corps a seat at the Joint Chiefs table, arguing the Corps is part of the Navy Department, as indeed it is. But the commandant got his seat.

Make room for one more four-star at that table, sooner or later.