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| AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file |
National Guard officials may have to cancel annual training and some drill weekends if they aren’t reimbursed for the funds used to send troops to Washington, D.C., following the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol building.
Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters at the Pentagon that his organization paid the $521 million needed to rush 26,000 personnel to the nation’s capital from every state and territory in the U.S. The Guard tapped into its own budget, pulling money from operations and maintenance accounts to pay for the troops who were standing guard for several months.
“That’s a significant amount to any organization — especially the National Guard,” said Gen. Hokanson, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We need to be reimbursed for that funding.”
If the National Guard doesn’t get reimbursed “fairly soon” he warned, the service may be forced to cancel or dramatically reduce training and drills for the rest of the fiscal year, along with slashing operational maintenance requirements. --->READ MORE HERE
The half-billion-dollar National Guard price tag to man the U.S. Capitol for more than five months following the Jan. 6 riot has emptied the Guard's coffers and will affect readiness if Congress does not act, National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. Daniel Hokanson said Wednesday.
National Guard members were deployed in 2020 for more than 21 million service days to respond to missions, including the domestic COVID-19 response, hurricane relief, fighting wildfires, protecting cities ravaged by the George Floyd protests, and overseas missions. But the Guard’s largest and most expensive mission was to protect the U.S. capital, including providing security for the presidential inauguration and the much-criticized militarization of the U.S. Capitol grounds with razor wire and 7-foot nonscalable fences.
The peak deployment in the nation’s capital required 26,000 service members from all 50 states, U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.
The National Guard footed the bill to meet the request by the U.S. Capitol Police, Secret Service, Park Service, and others, which did not have adequate personnel or protective measures in place following the breach of the Capitol grounds by pro-Trump rioters on Jan. 6. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to related stories:
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Army Secretary: Guardsmen may have 'training issues' if not reimbursed for Capitol deployment
National Guard readiness will suffer if funds for Capitol security are not restored, Army secretary says
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