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Article: Air Guard: guardsmen shift roles to align more with Air Force.(Air National Guard to reorganize in order to be effective in national security role)
- Article from:
- National Defense
- Article date:
- December 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 National Defense Industrial Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Air National Guard is reorganizing--shedding some traditional missions and taking on new ones--in order to play a larger national-security role as its active-duty partner, the Air Force, shrinks in size.
The changes are controversial, but necessary, officials said.
The Air Force reduced its numbers by 40 percent at the end of the Cold War, leaving it with approximately 352,000 personnel currently, but that's still too many, said Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley. So the service plans to get rid of another 40,000, or about 12 percent, over the next five years.
The reason? Like the other services, the Air Force is seeing much of its ...