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.
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