Maine Guard may be redeployed

AUGUSTA – Maine’s National Guard chief said Friday that any Guard member can be redeployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, even if the individual has met previous 24-month limits, under a new Pentagon policy.

“The clock is back to zero now,” Maj. Gen. Bill Libby, the state adjutant general, said during a briefing at Camp Keyes in Augusta.

The policy says previous 24-month deployment limits were rescinded and are being replaced by 12 months of active duty at a time, with a goal of five years at home before the next mobilization.

Libby said the new Pentagon directive means that all Maine Guard members – including those who have met the previous 24-month maximum – can be called back for new overseas stints.

Only one unit in Maine has been looked at for possible deployment under the new policy, Libby said.

Company C of the 1st Battalion, 126th Aviation Regiment unit based in Bangor, could be called up in January 2008.

“We have no knowledge about future deployments beyond Charlie Company,” Libby said.

The new orders come amid President Bush’s call for a surge of 21,500 additional troops in Iraq.

A Pentagon policy statement distributed by Libby says the 24-month limit no longer makes sense as reserve components are considered part of the pool of forces that the military expects to use for the foreseeable future.

“The intent of these changes is to establish a predictable cycle for Reserve and Guard units of one year on active duty followed by five years at home,” says the policy statement by David S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense and personal readiness.

It says that because of the demands of the military today, “some reservists and guardsmen will have to deploy sooner than they had expected or wanted.”

The policy statement says 12 months’ active duty with five years at home is a “goal,” a limit Libby later said could be exceeded if necessary.

Libby said as many as 1,800 Maine Guard troops have previously been mobilized. He would not estimate what percentage of Maine personnel have served in the Iraq and Afghan wars, but said the figure amounts to about 85 percent in most states.

Libby acknowledged that guardsmen and women who have reached previous deployment limits probably were not looking for a new deployment. But he said the new 12-month goals could come as a relief to many, noting that deployments in the past have averaged about 16 to 17 months.

Libby also expressed unease with the way in which the new policy was developed and communicated to state Guard directors.

Last week, Libby announced that Maine Guard units would not be called up again as part of the surge because they had already met their 24-month limits. But conflicting information about the 24-month policy from Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, raised questions about whether Maine units could be subject to further deployments.

Libby said it appeared that the new policy was developed without a say by the Guard. This is “a real concern to me and should be to our congressional delegation,” he said.

“We’re not in the huddle where the plays are being called,” Libby said.