The head of the Missouri National Guard has an opportunity to talk common sense to the people in Washington who write the nation’s military budget. Adjutant General Steve Danner has been elected to a two-year term as chairman of the National Guard Association of the United States, which represents nearly 45,000 citizen soldiers and officers in dealings with Congress and the Pentagon.
Danner says it makes more sense for the three functions of the Guard to be funded from three federal departments. He suggests Homeland Security fund National Guard domestic operations. Danner thinks the Pentagon should fund the Guard’s overseas operations. And he thinks the State Department should write the budget for the sister states program. Each state National Guard has a dipilomatic and military mission with a foreign country. Missouri’s sister state is Panama.
Danner says somebody needs to advocate commonsense decision-making for the National Guard. He says his Association makes him that somebody.