Vet News: Army Guard Prepares for Role in Haiti

ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 25, 2010 – As humanitarian relief operations continue in Haiti, the Army National Guard stands ready to provide personnel and equipment to support the mission, senior Army Guard officials said today.

"We stand by ready, willing and able to assist as soon as they sort out what the requirements are and what they want the Army Guard to fill," said Army Col. David Aycock, deputy chief of staff of operations for the Army Guard.

Currently, a Puerto Rico Army National Guard unit is the only Army Guard unit participating in relief operations in Haiti.

"The Puerto Rico Army National Guard, with three UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and 13 personnel, has been committed to the Haiti relief effort," Aycock said. But additional Army Guard assets may be sent to Haiti in the coming days, he added.

"We were asked yesterday to look at our ability to provide a command and communications company out of a general support aviation battalion," he said. "So within the next 24 hours or so, we may have a validated requirement for an aviation company to go down there."

Sending in the aviation company would provide additional Black Hawk helicopters as well as LUH-72A Lakota helicopters, Aycock said.

The Puerto Rico unit’s missions in Haiti involve airlifting water and rescue equipment, movement of personnel and casualty evacuation.

The Haitian government announced over the weekend that the search-and-rescue phase of the operation had closed. Aycock said that the next few weeks may see a transition of the U.S. military effort there to reserve-component units.

"The Army has asked us to look at some alternative solutions to provide some options for either additional forces that may be required or to replace some of the forces that are already on the ground sometime in the near future," he said. "My personal perspective is this thing is going to transition more and more to the reserve component-side of the house in the weeks ahead."

However, he emphasized, specific units or types of units that would be activated have yet to be determined.

"We’ve been asked to staff some potential options," he said. "We don’t have a hard requirement yet, but we’re looking at some organizational constructs of what we think would be the right force structure to go down there within the parameters we’ve been given."

Those parameters may change based on the needs on the ground, he said, and any mission plan would have to be validated by U.S. Southern Command, which has the overall command responsibility for U.S. forces in Haiti.

"We still have to go through the process of getting a validation from both Forces Command and Southern Command that the force mix we’re working meets the requirement on the ground," Aycock said. "And, we would need to put specific Army Guard solutions against that list, brief the leadership here and then engage with those states that own those units."

Several states have volunteered their National Guard forces for missions in Haiti.

"I think probably every state out there has come up on the net at some point and offered their assistance and engaged with us about their ability to provide forces and their willingness to provide forces should they get an opportunity to do that," Aycock said.

For now, Puerto Rico remains as the sole Army Guard asset in Haiti as well as being among the first U.S. military units to respond to the earthquake.

"Obviously, if it were up to us, we would put other units down there, but that’s not the way the process works," said Aycock, who described the process as more of a "pulling" one than one that the Army Guard pushes units into.

"Although we do have to wait on a pull system, we have significant capability in the Army Guard to apply against this if asked to apply it," he said. "And you can bet your boots we’ll provide it."

(Army Sgt. 1st Class Jon Soucy serves at the National Guard Bureau.)