Alaska to get more guard spots, maybe
As mentioned last July here on the blog, the Spartans of 4th BCT (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, will also shrink to a battalion task force, losing 4,000 to 1,000. This is a continuation of the apparent DOD withdrawal from the Great North, as some 4,721 military positions have been eliminated at JBLM since 2012. As 4/25 is a rapid deployment air-mobile force (two battalions of paratroopers, one of light cavalry squadron– the only one of its type on the West Coast) it would be one of the first moved to Korea or the Philippines if the balloon goes up there.
Well, the solution to help back fill Alaska if the shiny new battalion task force legion gets deployed will apparently be a revamped Alaska National Guard. The unit dates back to the old Eskimo Scouts of WWII and back then numbered over 6,000 under arms.
During the Cold War, they kept their numbers at nearly 3,000 citizen soldiers of the 207th Infantry Group, ready to repel Soviet frogmen and Spetsnaz coming in to sabotage the pipeline and get a toe hold like the Japanese did in 1942.
They even included an airborne unit (LRSD) composed of guardsmen, a rare thing indeed.
Well, as soon as the Cold War thawed, the ANG was pared down to just over 1,800, with most of those members in urban centers, not villages like in the old days. The Guard’s LRSD unit is making their last jump this week. Worse, the rural units, filled with hard local loggers, trappers, sustenance hunters and indig personnel shrank to nothing.
Most of Alaska’s 100 or so armories were shuttered or turned over to government and tribal entities for offices, gyms or community buildings. Only 17 are still operating…In the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, 600 to 700 guard members used to train during monthly drill weekends. Kotzebue and Nome had big forces, too. Now the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is down to 40 guard members.
But hopefully, that’s all going to change now that the regulars are by and large leaving.
Or at least that’s the plan. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯