Red Warrior's Journal: Thor[1] has spoken

I used to think that the national guard shouldn't have organizations larger than a battalion (600+/-people). I was wrong. The national guard shouldn't have organizations larger than a company (100 +/-)[2]. Any Battalion or larger headquarters or staff functions should be done by active component weenies.

As I think I've said before, the guard has, on average, better soldiers and junior leaders than the active component. It has the senior leadership...that it has.

[1] Thor speaks rather often, as the guy in the next trailer is so named. I doubt he would agree with the above, though.
[2] This will never happen, due to politics, turf wars, and the promotion system. But it would still be right.

one reason to stick with battalion sized units

[piano]

Out West -- or at least here in Colorado -- when the National Guard activates troops to assist firefighting, they typically send out 300 per fire and put 500-600 on standby in the area. Of course this depends on the size, shape, and containment of the fire, and the demand from the state and local firefighters.

What spurred your change of opinion?

"It's worse than that. He's dead Jim!"

[Red Warrior]

I understand about the fires, being from WA and all. They can put FEMA/STARC or whomever in overall charge. The important thing, IMO, is that the units be able to act as coherent units, under good leadership doing thier primary job. Especially as the deployment cycle/optempo heats up.

What changed my opinion? Experience has shown that what I thought was cynicism was, in fact, optimism. I would give more of a real answer, but I have decided that the easiest way to ensure I don't transmit any info I shouldn't

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

IdeaLab

[cei]

In the heigh of dot-com-usnism, Bill Gross, the founder of IdeaLab [idealab.com] believed that no company should have more than 100 employees, and that each employee should own a stake in the company, ensuring its success. If, for some reason, a company grew to more than 100 people, it could probably be split off into smaller business units.