Given that National Guard units are enduring longer and more frequent mobilizations to Iraq and Afghanistan, it is clear that the function and operation of these units has fundamentally changed. What is less clear is whether they are adequately prepared to sustain these new missions while not giving up their domestic responsibilities.

A report by the congressionally chartered Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, released last week, said that these military units have not received the financial resources and training necessary to meet their expanded and increasingly full-time role in the war on terror. This puts their domestic responsibilities, such as disaster response, at risk.

“I have long been concerned that the administration is asking too much of our National Guard and Reserve at the expense of preparedness for an attack in this country or a catastrophic natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina,” Sen. Susan Collins, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after the report’s release. “The repeated and lengthy mobilizations of National Guard and Reserve units indicate a troubling over-reliance on our nation’s citizen-soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

At a committee hearing today, Sen. Collins and others will have plenty of questions for Arnold Punaro, the Marine Corps general who chaired the commission.

In addition to clarifying the problem, they should begin to identify a solution.

Reliance on the National Guard and Reserves is less costly than expanding the country’s active-duty military – about 70 percent cheaper, according to the commission – but the current over-reliance on these units comes at a price.

Because of equipment shortages and a lack of trained troops ready for deployment, the Army last year has rated 88 percent of its National Guard units as “not ready” for deployment.

The Maine Army National Guard has about half the equipment it needs. The Guard and Reserve needed an additional $48 billion to secure the equipment they need to sustain their missions, according to the report.

The problems aren’t solely financial. Increased reliance on these units has put added strains on them and their families. This increases costs, puts troops and their families under additional stress and makes it more difficult to recruit and retain members.

The group’s first recommendation is to make the National Guard and Reserves a more integral part of the active-duty military. This would require a fully-staffed, trained and equipped force, which the Guard and Reserves, depleted by repeated deployments to the Middle East is not. The commission did not put a price tag on reaching this goal, which the Pentagon said last week it was already moving toward.

The National Guard and Reserves have been asked to remake their mission. Now Congress can help by ensuring they have the money, equipment and people they need to do their job.