The Berlin Mobilization The 1960s began with a mobilization. In the summer of 1961, the Soviets began to build a wall around West Berlin, isolated inside communist East Germany. When Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev threatened newly-elected President John Kennedy over the western military presence in West Berlin, Kennedy responded by alerting some United States military forces. In September, October, and November 1961 40 Air National Guard squadrons were mobilized "for not more than a year;" 22 of them were sent to Europe. In the Army National Guard, the 32nd Infantry and 49th Armored Divisions were mobilized, along with 104 non-divisional units. None of these units left the United States.
If Korea was the National Guard's first partial mobilization, the Berlin Crisis was its first political mobilization. It was suggested at the time that, given the personal hardships which mobilization often meant for individual Gaurdsmen and their families, it was not fair to use mobilization for diplomatic, as opposed to military, ends. But the mobilized Guardsmen and Reservists did serve notice to the Soviet Union that the United States was prepared to use force to maintain its treaty obligations.
The Shrinking Army National Guard Force Structure John F. Kennedy brought to Washington as his Secretary of Defense the former President of the Ford Motor Company, Robert S. McNamara. With his Harvard Business School training, McNamara was determined to streamline the management of the nation's armed forces. The reserve components were high on his list for remodeling.
Since the end of World War II, it had been part of the country's military policy to rely heavily on the reserves as a cost-cutting measure. McNamara, however, felt that the reserves were too large; he wanted fewer units at a higher degree of readiness. Accordingly, 802 units, including four divisions, were cut from the Army National Guard in 1963.
Deeper cuts were proposed two years later, but McNamara offered the National Guard something in return: he wanted to merge all Army Reserve units into the Guard, leaving the Reserve to consist of individuals only. The Army Reserve had developed its own friends in Congress, and the proposal was blocked. But the Army National Guard still lost its units. By September 1967, 12 infantry and 3 armored divisions had been inactivated. Among them were the 32nd, 36th, and 45th, divisions with combat records a s distinguished as any in the U.S. Army. The Army National Guard was left with eight divisions, five infantry, one mechanized, and two armored.
War in Southeast Asia While the Army Guard struggled through these numerous reorganizations, American political and military involvement in the Republic of Vietnam was growing. United States ground combat forces had been committed in March 1965, and Vietnam began to siphon off an ever-increasing share of our miltitary resources. Secretary McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to use the reserves to meet manpower demands. However, President Lyndon Johnson felt that to do so would make too clear the extent of our military involvement, and turn the American people against the war. Johnson preferred to get his manpower by increasing the size of the draft--and decision which would have far-reaching consequences for the Army and for the National Guard.
The Viet Cong's Tet Offensive of January 1968, coming as it did after Americans had been told repeatedly that there was "light at the end of the tunnel," struck like a bombshell. For a month, Johnson and his political advisors debated various reserve mobilization plans, as requests for more troops poured in from Saigon. Finally, in April, the new Secretary of Defense announced the mobilization of 76 reserve component units.
Thirty four Army Guard units, with 12,234 (94.7%) of their personnel, reported for active duty in May 1968. Eight of these units, with 2,729 members, were deployed to Vietnam. An additional 4,311 Guardsmen were sent to the combat zone as fillers.
Alabama's 650th Medical Detachment (Dental) was the first Army National Guard unit to arrive in Vietnam. Indiana's Company D (Ranger), 151st Infantry, which conducted reconnaissance and ambush patrols, became the first Army Guard unit since the Korean War to gain the Combat Infantry Streamer for its guidon.
The Air Guard in Vietnam Air National Guard units began flying supply missions to Vietnam in 1965, and the Air Guard was mobilized twice during the Vietnam War. Eleven squadrons were called up in January 1968 in response to the seizing of the U.S. Navy ship Pueblo by North Korea, and two tactical fighter squadrons, the 166th (Ohio) and the 127th (Kansas) were sent to South Korea. In May 1968 one aeromedical airservice group and two tactical fighter groups were federalized.
Four tactical fighter squadrons--the 120th (Colorado), 174th (Iowa), 188th (New Mexico), and 136th (New York)--deployed to Vietnam. And although not an Air National Guard unit, the National Guard can claim credit for a fifth squadron, the 3755th: 85% of this tactical fighter squadron's personnel were Air Guard volunteers from New Jersey and the District of Columbia.
The combat record of these five squadrons was summed up by the Air Force Commander in Vietnam, testifying before the Senate Committee:
"I had . . . five F-100 Air National Guard squadrons . . . Those were the five best F-100 squadrons in the field. The aircrews were a little older, but they were more experienced, and the maintenance people were also more experienced than the regular unit s. They had done the same work on the weapon system for years, and they had stability that a regular unit doesn't have."
Action on the Homefront Many National Guard units not mobilized for Vietnam saw action of a different sort during the 1960s. Beginning with Newark, New Jersey in 1964, racially-motivated riots broke out in many large American cities. Units of the National Guard were called out to stop buming and looting in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Detroit, and a host of other cities. And as the anti-war movement gathered momentum in the late 1960s, Guardsmen were called out to maintain order during large demonstrations.
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