Guard against it

Hard to see the mission from here

The National Guard can make things better during a manmade disaster, too. Your neighbors in (part-time) uniform aren’t limited to patching things up after hurricanes and floods. Not to mention filling openings on the front lines during war.

The Guard trains to be flexible.

Just this past summer, the governor of Arkansas sent Guardsmen to Texas to help along the Mexican border. Not that they were asked to round up illegal immigrants. But about 40 of them in vehicle maintenance crews took some of the pressure off other units.

There’s an important role to play for support units in all kinds of emergencies. Just ask somebody on the front lines if they appreciate the hot meal, the bandage, or the prayer service.

Still . . . .

Word came down that the White House was seriously looking at calling up National Guard units to help in its fight to untangle the supply chain. It seems they’ll go with other options first, but apparently this is a serious discussion in the administration. We don’t understand everything we know about it.

There is a shortage of truck drivers in this country, so would Guard troops drive trucks? And are those corporals and sergeants who are authorized to drive deuce-and-a-halfs also qualified to drive 18-wheelers across country? And if the uniformed types turn out in any kind of number to get things moving, what would civilian truckers think of it? (For example, what would it do to their hourly rates?)

The Guard is often called upon to turn out strong backs. So maybe units will be asked to unload cargo at the Port of Los Angeles or New Orleans or Houston. Would that un-kink the supply chain?

According to dispatches, the American Apparel and Footwear Association has sent a letter to the administration, asking it to come up with “creative ideas” to deal with the supply chain bottlenecks, including using the National Guard or opening up naval ports for cargo.

A White House spokesman, when asked, said the administration isn’t taking anything off the table. Even Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, was asked about it on one of the Sunday shows.

We imagine most commanders in all the armories across the land would say, well, anything we can do to help.

But they’d probably like to see some sort of operations order first, just to learn the details. There aren’t a lot of Guard units that train on the use of forklifts.

Remember, only first sergeants are issued magic wands. Everybody else is just human.