Army National Guard brigade combat teams (BCTs) are doctrinally designed for the full spectrum of brigade combat operations.

Unfortunately, too many war planners still see these formations as little more than sources of spare parts.

It wasn't supposed to be this way anymore. Deploying intact, cohesive units was one of the great lessons learned from the first five years of the war on terror. Pentagon officiate said as much several times over the last year.

Yet, none of the four Army Guard brigades alerted in April for 2008 service in Iraq will mobilize, deploy or, most important, fight as an intact brigade, according to plans as they stood last month.

Instead, the Army will break them into parts. The brigade and battalion headquarters will get combat-service-support assignments, while their subordinate units will be cobbled into separate security-force (SECFOR) companies for detached duty across Iraq.

So much for Army doctrine. So much for unit cohesion. And so much for the brigade's chain of command as it exists today. A basic strength and tenet of our Army is unity of command. This plan just throws that long-standing attribute out the window.

But the toughest part to swallow is the continuation of separate secFOR companies, nearly all of which come from the Army Guard.

You may be familiar with these provisional units. As part of a concept developed over the last couple of years, they perform a variety of essential tasks in Iraq and Afghanistan, including convoy escort and base security.

The problem isn't the security mission. It's perfectly legitimate. The problem is the separate SECFOR company concept.

Such units don't exist in our force structure. They are created. In fact, the secFOR units currently in Iraq were drawn from scores of Guard battalions and brigades nationwide.

And because of their size, forming one SECFOR company requires combining the better part of two regular companies, which punches holes in our larger formations.

It also creates orphan units. That's because, as their description implies, they are severed for the duration of their deployment from their current higher headquarters.

Of course, these companies are attached to some other battalion or brigade for administrative and logistical purposes. But a unit always gets its best support from its own headquarters.

The adjutants general and the Guard Bureau leadership communicated all of this to senior Army officials a few months ago. We were adamant: No more separate SECFOR companies.

We thought they had heard us when plans were announced to accelerate the mobilization of full Army Guard BCTs. We thought these brigades would be employed intact, just as their active-component counterparts.

Then came the news that our BCTs would be nothing more than sources of parts for more separate SECFOR companies.

It seems ground commanders in Iraq like having separate companies that they can "plug and play" all over the battlefield, regardless of doctrine and the cost to our force.

There is a better way: Give each Army Guard brigade combat team a sector and let them secure it. Allow the existing rifle companies to function under their current battalion and brigade chain of command. Allow them to operate as intended.

More discussion of this issue is sure to follow. As Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, Guard Bureau chief, said in this magazine last month, "Those brigades are going with the brigade headquarters and brigade leadership, and they are going to be given a brigade mission, or they won't go. It's nonnegotiable. We've done it wrong for too long."

Right on, chief.

Stay tuned.

Proud to serve.

© 2007 National Guard Association of the United States Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.