President Trump pledged to pay the troops today, but what about in the weeks ahead? The military is feeling the pressure of the shutdown, and for the National Guard, it’s even more complicated.
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The Trump administration says it is paying federal troops today, but that does not fully end the shutdown confusion for these military members. For the National Guard, there are added complications. WUNC’s Jay Price reports.
JAY PRICE, BYLINE: Some National Guard troops on full-time active duty have continued to collect paychecks during the shutdown, but most have not. Those going without pay include the majority of guard members who serve part time, typically one weekend a month and two weeks a year.
And it also includes more than 33,000 dual-status technicians who work full time in uniform for the guard but are considered government civilian workers. Those technicians haven’t seen a paycheck since the end of September, but most still have to work because they perform vital jobs, like keeping supplies moving, maintaining aircraft and running the Guard’s electronic systems.
JOHN HASHEM: It – you’ve got that big emotional effect now across our families. You know, that’s active and reserve.
PRICE: John Hashem is a retired Army two-star general who leads the Reserve Organization of America, an advocacy group for Guard and Reserve troops and families.
HASHEM: And it’s a disservice to someone who, you know, raises their right hand to support and defend the Constitution that you’re going to do it, and you’re going to do it for free now.
PRICE: Hashem’s group and others are lobbying Congress to pay all troops and the technicians during the shutdown. Meanwhile, the families are scrambling. Like many hit by the shutdown, they’re visiting food pantries, and a few have even started GoFundMe appeals.
HASHEM: It’s anything they can do to guarantee they can put food on the table. Borrowing money from other family members, taking loans out, selling cars – those are some of the things that I’ve heard right off the bat.
PRICE: Hashem says he’s heard of at least one case in which a family had to stop paying for health insurance. Jenny Akin, a vice president of Blue Star Families, an advocacy and support group for military families, is hearing similar stories.
JENNY AKIN: One of them in particular – I’m going to see if I can talk about this without choking up – you know, they have one car, and that car needs to be used by a person who is going to a job every day. And the other, you know, spouse who’s at home can’t even get to the food pantry, you know, to get the food because it is all running out faster now because everybody’s using it.
So, you know, our Guard and Reserve are just as deployed and often more so than our active duty forces. They are paramount to our national security, and we have to start thinking of them that way.
PRICE: The Trump administration’s controversial deployments of units to American cities has added to the demands on the National Guard. Traditionally, of course, a big Guard role is helping with disaster recovery and other emergency needs at the state level.
Jocelyn Mitnaul Mallette is the secretary of military and veterans affairs for North Carolina, where most of the more than 10,000 Guardsmen aren’t getting their weekend training or pay. She notes that among those not getting checks are 841 of the dual-status technicians who work full time with the Guard, and those technicians are having trouble getting parts they need for tasks like helicopter maintenance because of supply chain problems related to the shutdown.
JOCELYN MITNAUL MALLETTE: And it’s getting to the point where the National Guard’s ability to perform missions and execute missions at the federal level will be compromised pretty quickly.
PRICE: Akin, with Blue Star Families, is eager for the shutdown to end. And now that government shutdowns have become regular occurrences, she hopes something good comes out of the chaos.
AKIN: You know, every hard time is an opportunity to improve, and I think this has given us the opportunity to see some very acute pain points that we as a nation need to fix and address because it’s critical to our national security.
PRICE: But meanwhile, she says she just got an email from one of the people whose role in the government is to help military families in need. That person expects to be furloughed soon. For NPR News, I’m Jay Price in Durham, North Carolina.
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