SEAPOWER/RESERVES

Naval Reserve

The Naval Reserve provides mission-capable units and individuals to the Navy and Marine Corps team throughout the full range of operations in both peace and war.

That is the mission statement of the Naval Reserve as it continues its integration with the active forces into a "One-Navy Force."

With the change in the U.S. national strategy from preparation for a global war with the now-defunct Soviet Union to one of meeting regional contingencies, the Reserve is being called upon to perform more of the Navy's daily activities, giving the active fleet a much-needed respite.

Before the dissolution of the Warsw Pact, as the Navy itself has pointed out, most of the reserve force stood by, training one weekend per month and two weeks a year, waiting for mobilization.

"Today, this passive stance is gone," a spokeswomen said. "Increasing demands in the strategic environment, coupled with overall force reductions, have resulted in reservists being integrated more fully than ever before into routine operations both at sea and ashore.

"Because of these changes, the Naval Reserve has moved from a force-in-waiting to a proactive and more productive force, leveraging the significant training and experience of its members--most of whom are veterans with extensive active-duty service."

The Naval Reserve Force, which numbers more than 600,000 men and women, consists of three major components: The Ready Reserve, the Standby Reserve, and the Retired Reserve. The Ready Reserve is made up of the Selected Reserve (SELRES) and the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR).

The former, which is the primary source of personnel for immediate mobilization, is composed of reservists who participate, either on a part-time basis or in a full-time training status (TAR), in the Naval Reserve Force program. Standby and Retired Reservists are available for recall in times of crisis, but do not drill regularly.

As an indication of its contributions, Naval Reserve support grew from 952,000 man-days in 1992 to 2,000,000 man-days in 1998, despite the fact that the Reserve Force budget has been cut and the size of the force was reduced (by approximately 40 percent) during that time frame. The Reserve receives only three percent of the Navy's budget, but provides 20 percent of its total manpower.

Rear Adm. John Totushek became commander, Naval Reserve Force, director of Naval Reserve on the staff of the chief of naval operations, and chief of Naval Reserve in matters before Congress, in October 1998. He is facing the twin problems of recruitment and retention. The goal of 90,000 Selected Reservists in fiscal year 1999 has fallen short by almost 2,000.

In an interview with Navy Times last October, Totushek said that in the future reservists might be able (and permitted) to drill by computer. He said the Reserve must catch up with the technology possessed by the active-duty force.

The Reserve is responsible, in part or in full, for a number of the Navy's key missions. For example:

Ninety percent of the Navy's Expeditionary Logistics Support Force are Reserve units that create advance bases for the movement, storage, and delivery of war materials to support theater commander-in-chief (CINC) requirements.
Reserve personnel from mobile inshore undersea-warfare units (MIUWs) provide all of the Navy's surface and subsurface surveillance forces and are key to the success of the Navy's littoral-warfare activities in shallow waters and coastal regions. These units have taken part in every recent major Navy exercise and operation.
Reservists also provide 100 percent of the Navy's tactical aircraft adversary training.
Reserve helicopter squadrons provide nearly half of the Navy's combat search-and-rescue capability.
Reserve maritime patrol aircraft units--seven squadrons of six aircraft each--account for 35 percent of the Navy's total airborne ocean-surveillance capability.
Reserve Seabee units make up 60 percent of the Navy Department's total naval construction assets--12 battalions, vs. eight in active service.
Naval Reserve medical and dental personnel provide 28.5 percent of the Navy's medical capability, treating military personnel and their families around the world.
The Naval Reserve Force has two operational arms--the Naval Surface Reserve Force and the Naval Air Reserve Force, plus an administrative command structure. Two Reserve rear admirals command the operational arms and administer their forces in conjunction with the active-force commanders under whom these reservists drill and to whom they would report on mobilization.

Rear Adm. John P. McLaughlin is currently serving as commander of the Naval Air Reserve Force; Rear Adm. John F. Brunelli heads the Naval Surface Reserve Force.

In the Surface Force are 10 Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, four Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships, nine Osprey-class coastal minehunters, the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, the mine countermeasures command, control, and support ship Inchon, and two tank landing ships (LSTs), the only beachable ships still in service.

One of the primary missions of these Reserve ships is to make it possible for the active component to maintain its operating tempo. For example, four Reserve ships patrolled Caribbean waters on counterdrug operations while the Inchon and her escorts deployed to the Mediterranean and took part in Operation Shining Hope, the humanitarian relief of Kosovo.

There are more than 4,000 reservists in the submarine force. They are assigned to submarine tenders, main-tenance facilities and drydocks, squadron and group staffs, and fleet submarine control centers; they also serve in various North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commands, and with at-sea battle groups on submarine command and control staffs. They perform such tasks as repairing and loading Mk48 torpedoes and calibrating navigation and test equipment.

The Air Reserve currently numbers some 26,000 TAR and Selected Reserve personnel. Included are all Naval Reserve intelligence assets. With 35 squadrons, the Naval Air Reserve is among the largest and most capable air forces in the world. These aircraft are in its inventory: C-9B/DC-9 Skytrain II intratheater transports; C-130T Hercules transports; EA-6B Prowler electronic attack aircraft; E-2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft; F-5E/F Tiger adversary planes; P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft; F/A-18 Hornet strikefighters; HH-60H Seahawk combat search-and-rescue helicopters; SH-60F Seahawk and SH-2G Seasprite antisubmarine warfare (ASW) helicopters; and UH-3H utility and rescue helicopters.

Collectively, the ships, aircraft weapons, and specialty forces of the Naval Reserve Force make it the fourth largest sea power in the world, and one of the most potent.

Marine Corps Reserve

Gen. James L. Jones Jr., who succeeded Gen. Charles C. Krulak as commandant last summer, is counting on the Marine Corps Reserve to continue to serve as an essential component of the Corps in both peace and war.

"More than 98 percent of all Selected Reserve Marine Corps units are included in current operational plans," he said. "In peacetime, the Reserves also are contributors to exercises, optempo relief, and actual operations."

The Marine Forces Reserve (MFR) is commanded by a regular component major general--currently Maj. Gen. D.M. Mize. The MFR's three subordinate commands are headed by reservists: 4th Marine Division, Maj. Gen. A.L. Punaro; 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, Maj. Gen. K.B. Kuklok; and the 4th Force Service Support Group. Brig. Gen. J.J. McCarthy Jr.

Three major missions are assigned to the MFR:

To augment and reinforce the regular component during crises and national emergencies;
To provide peacetime operational and personnel tempo relief to the regular units; and
To tell the Marine Corps story to the American people by being "twice the citizen" in their communities.
The MFR is organized into three categories: (a) the Ready Reserve, largest of the three, which consists of the Selected Reserve and the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR); (b) the Retired Reserve; and (c) the Standby Reserve.

The Selected Reserve was approximately 40,000-strong at the start of fiscal year 2000 and has a projected year-end strength of 39,624. It is the primary source of both augmentation units and individual Marines and consists of three elements--the warfighting units of the MFR, individual augmentee members, and active-duty reserve personnel. Approximately 2,300 members of the Selected Reserve are currently on active duty.

The IRR is nearly 60,000 members strong, including 3,000 officers. It provides pretrained Marines to fill shortfalls in active and reserve component forces and to facilitate the quick expansion of the supporting establishment to meet wartime contingency requirements.

Marines who have served in and received training as part of the active forces, and who still have some active-service-obligation time remaining, are assigned to the IRR. Individuals who have completed their military service obligation also may choose to remain in the IRR.

There are currently about 4,600 Marines in the Retired Reserve. Marine reservists who have transferred to the retired list after completing 20 qualifying years of service creditable for retired pay are assigned to the RR. The few Marines in the Standby Reserve may be ordered to active duty involuntarily, but only in time of war or other national emergency.

In peacetime, the MFR assists the commandant in the development and implementation of plans and policies, budgets, and force structure. It is responsible for its own readiness.

The MFR also organizes, equips, and integrates the training plans and procedures of subordinate units. It trains and administers its units for the same full range of missions as their counterparts in the active component. The MFR also provides reserve units and individuals to the operational forces for training exercises, humanitarian and disaster-relief missions, and narcotics interdiction, as well as civil-disturbance operations.

The Reserve Support Command coordinates the training and administration of the individual reservists. It also recruits qualified prior-service personnel for drilling units, and supports various other reserve activities and training exercises.

The command also assists the Corps' readiness support through an innovative effort that makes peacetime/wartime support teams responsible for disaster relief planning for family and casualty assistance, mobilization screening, and community relations at reserve training centers.

In forward-presence operations, the Reserve augments and reinforces the active component for joint and combined exercises, helps maintain equipment prepositioned overseas, provides security-assistance teams and detachments, and supports exercises and counterdrug operations of the U.S. Southern Command.

At home, the MFR conducts major exercises, supports training events such as combined-arms exercises, provides selected augmentation units to support active-component logistics requirements at various bases and stations, and augments the Marine Prepositioning Force.

Among the major Marine reserve units scheduled to participate in exercises during fiscal year 2000 are the following:

Bright Star, 10 October to 2 November 1999: a multinational exercise in Egypt with Marine Fighter Attack Squadrons (VMFAs) 112 and 321; Marine Air Group (MAG) 41; Marine Aerial Refueling Transport Squadron (VMGR) 234; Marine Wing Support Group (MWSG) 47; Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron (MALS) 41; and 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (LAR).
Hawaii Combined Arms Operation, 3 January to 5 February 2000: with 3rd Marines, including these units: VMFAs 134 and 142; VMGR-452; MALS-46; MAG-46; Marine Wing Support Squadron 473; and Communications Company Headquarters and Support (H&S) Battalion, 4th Force Service Support Group (FSSG).
Cobra Gold, 29 April to 13 May: a Pacific Command exercise in Thailand with VMGR-234; 3rd Civil Affairs Group (CAG); Marine Air Control Squadron (MACS) 24; and 4th Landing Support Battalion (LSB).
Joint Forge (the Bosnia peacekeeping mission): throughout FY 2000, with the 4th CAG.
Combined Endeavor, June 2000: a "Partnership for Peace" communications exercise in Germany with a detachment from the 4th FSSG.
Combined Arms Exercise, 3 June to 17 June 2000: for Marine Air-Ground Task Force training in the desert environment of Twentynine Palms, Calif., with elements of the 4th Marine Division, 4th Marine Air Wing, 4th FSSG, and other MFR units.
Ulchi Focus Lens, 29 July to 22 September 2000: a joint training exercise in Korea, with Marine Augmentation Command Element (MACE); MAG-46; 14th Central Intelligence Team, 24th Marines; 3rd CAG; and FSSG Forward West.
Some active-duty tours for reserves are more pleasant than others. The 40 reservists of the 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment (out of cool Grand Rapids, Mich.), for example, were assigned to a three-week training exercise in sunny, tropical Aruba, a Dutch Island in the Caribbean 15 miles from Venezuela and, because of its beautiful beaches, a favorite vacation spot for many Americans.

The Marine Reserves were there to participate in "Dutch bilateral training" with the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps. The training package included boat operations, tactical patrolling, military operations in urbanized terrain, and physical exercises.

The 4th Marine Aircraft Wing won two prestigious awards for flying more than 40,000 hours without serious accident in 1998.

The honors--the Chief of Naval Operations' Readiness Through Safety Award and the Order of Daedalian Admiral James S. Russell Aviation Flight Safety Award--were presented to the wing on 5 June in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Maj. Gen. Kuklok, the wing commander, said it took a team effort to win the awards.

"It is the individual pursuit of the highest standards, and accepting nothing less, that has allowed 4th MAW to attain this noteworthy safety record," he said.

Coast Guard Reserve

The Coast Guard Reserve provides qualified personnel to assist the Coast Guard in meeting its national defense responsibilities, responding to domestic emergencies, and performing routine operations. These activities support the service's primary objectives, which are safety, national defense, maritime security, mobility, and the protection of natural resources.

The Coast Guard Reserve continues to refine its seamless integration with Coast Guard active-duty commands and to expand its unique national-defense capabilities. Because most Coast Guard reservists are assigned to the same active-component command to which they report upon mobilization, they are better prepared, both administratively and operationally, to support the active commands on a daily basis and during surge contingencies.

Coast Guard port security units (PSUs), which are almost exclusively staffed by reservists, continue to expand. Three new PSUs were commissioned during fiscal year 1999: PSU 307 in St. Petersburg, Fla.; PSU 308 in Gulfport, Miss.; and PSU 313 in Seattle, Wash. The other PSUs are PSU 305 in Fort Eustis, Va., PSU 309 in Port Clinton, Ohio, and PSU 311 in San Pedro, Calif.

The PSUs deploy with the Coast Guard Transportable Port Security Boats (TPSBs). TPSBs are rapid-deployable and are armed with one .50-caliber machine gun forward and two 7.62mm machine guns aft. Six boats usually deploy with a 117-member PSU, which provides maritime defense of coalition assets, equipment, and personnel within a critical harbor. During 1999, the Coast Guard's new 15-foot "Guardian" TPSB replaced an earlier 22-foot "Raider" TPSB that saw port security duty during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

In addition to their national defense role, Coast Guard reservists continue to perform a major role in the Coast Guard's peacetime missions, serving side by side with active-duty personnel aboard cutters as well as at air stations, and participating in marine safety offices and other shore facilities. In July 1999, when a small plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr. crashed en route to Martha's Vineyard, 13 reservists were voluntarily recalled for the search-and-recovery effort. Reservists also participated in the cleanup and salvage effort following the grounding of the foreign cargo vessel New Carissa on the Oregon coast in February 1999.

Because of its expanding roles and missions, and its continuing integration with the active forces, the Coast Guard Reserve anticipates a future that will require additional billets. New initiatives to recruit reservists, including the deployment of 28 highly trained, Reserve-dedicated recruiters--who identify and assist qualified prospects through the recruiting process--helped the Reserve attain its congressionally authorized strength of 8,000 Selected Reservists in August 1999. But the job is not finished. A 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB)-directed study of Coast Guard Reserve Roles and Missions validated the need for a Selected Reserve strength of 12,293 to meet national defense tasking, respond to operational contingency requirements, and support day-to-day operations. The Coast Guard Reserve will make this increase in end-strength a priority in the near term.

The Coast Guard Reserve was established by the Coast Guard Reserve and Auxiliary Act of 19 February 1941, which also established the present-day Coast Guard Auxiliary. The original members of the Coast Guard Reserve, which was modeled after the Naval Reserve, fell into two broad categories: Regular Reservists and Temporary Reservists. During World War II, Regular Reserve members served on active duty "for the duration." The Temporary Reserve consisted of volunteers and former Auxiliary members whose paid and unpaid services were needed for short-term coastal patrols and port security work.

On 23 November 1942, Congress enacted Public Law 773, which established a Women's Reserve as a branch of the Coast Guard. Members of this branch became known as SPARs, an acronym drawn from the service's motto: "Semper Paratus, Always Ready."

More than 92 percent of the 214,000 personnel who served in the Coast Guard during World War II were reservists--an additional 125,000 personnel served in the Temporary Reserve.

At the end of World War II, most Coast Guard reservists were released to inactive duty or discharged. The Coast Guard Women's Reserve was terminated in July 1947, but was reestablished in August 1949. Congress provided funds the next year to establish a paid drilling Reserve to support the Coast Guard's expanding port security responsibilities. The first organized Coast Guard Reserve unit, formed in Boston in October 1950, set in place a reserve unit framework that would last into the 1990s. The Coast Guard Selected Reserve reached its peak post-WWII strength of 17,815 in 1969, during the Vietnam conflict.

In the spring of 1973, the Coast Guard recalled 134 reservists, in the service's first involuntary recall, to support flood-response operations in the Midwest. Between then and 1990, the Coast Guard exercised only one other involuntary recall, to help cope with the Mariel Boatlift exodus from Cuba in 1980. In the 1990s, however, the Coast Guard Reserve has seen a growing demand for its services.

Since 1992, reservists have been voluntarily and involuntarily recalled (under the Coast Guard's unique domestic-recall authority established by Title 14 U.S.C. 712) to help the active-duty Coast Guard cope with 14 hurricanes and six major floods, as well as other operations for which additional personnel were needed to meet the Coast Guard's surge requirements. In 1996, for instance, more than 100 Coast Guard Reservists assisted in the TWA Flight 800 disaster recovery operations off Long Island, N.Y.

The 1996 Centennial Olympics yachting events in Savannah, Ga., required one of the largest peacetime Coast Guard support operations in recent history, and included more than 120 Coast Guard reservists on-scene with many more in backfill positions elsewhere.

To support the Coast Guard's national defense mission, 1,650 reservists--more than 15 percent of the Selected Reserve--participated in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Reserve-staffed PSUs also participated in the joint-service support of Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, and continue to participate in joint military exercises worldwide. In the last year alone, PSU 311 participated in Fleet Battle Experiment "E" in San Francisco and FTX "Foal Eagle '99" in the Republic of Korea. PSUs 305 and 309 sent detachments to Egypt for real-world force protection during FTX "Bright Star '99."

Domestically, the Coast Guard Reserve is at the forefront of many day-to-day missions involving the public and other government agencies. Since the 1980s, reservists have formed the bulk of the Coast Guard units enforcing security zones for space shuttle operations in Florida, and 65 percent of all personnel employed in the massive cleanup operations in Alaska following the 1990 Exxon Valdez oil spill came from the Coast Guard Reserve.

Reservists also have taken a leading role in preventing marine pollution. Sea Partners, a unique and highly successful Reserve program sponsored by the Coast Guard, has earned high marks around the country since its inception in 1994. Its primary objectives have been to educate the public at large about marine pollution issues and to improve compliance with marine environmental protection laws and regulations. More than 300 Coast Guard reservists have participated in the Sea Partners campaign, in which teams of reservists were assigned to each of the 44 Coast Guard Marine Safety Offices throughout the country. Through the Sea Partners program, Coast Guard reservists coordinated numerous beach and shore cleanups in FY 1999 and strengthened the Coast Guard's working relationships with numerous community and local government organizations.

A new era for the Coast Guard Reserve began in 1994­1995. During this period all Reserve units were disestablished and Coast Guard Selected Reservists were integrated directly into active-component commands, a model now being followed by the reserve components of the nation's other armed forces. The Coast Guard's streamlined organization, called "Team Coast Guard," embraces all components of the Coast Guard--civilians, the Coast Guard Auxiliary, and active-duty and Reserve personnel.