Maj. Gen. Daryl L. Bohac, adjutant general of the Nebraska National Guard, left, and Gov. Pete Ricketts talk Tuesday at the Nebraska National Guard Joint Force Headquarters in Lincoln about the National Guard restructuring plans.
LINCOLN — The Nebraska Army National Guard is about to undergo its largest restructuring in 20 years, Gov. Pete Ricketts announced Tuesday.
The realignment will affect about 1,100 of the state’s 3,600 Army National Guard soldiers in 16 Nebraska communities, Ricketts said at a press conference at the Nebraska National Guard’s Joint Force Headquarters.
But no armories will close, and there will be little change in the total number of National Guard forces in the state. No Nebraska Air National Guard units will be affected.
Much of the impact will be felt in the central and western parts of the state, Ricketts said.
As part of the wide-ranging changes, a transportation company in Chadron and Scottsbluff will be transformed into a military police company. A transportation company in Kearney will become a brigade support headquarters and field maintenance unit. And a new military police detachment will be created in Grand Island.
Currently, all units from Kearney west are trucking units.
“It’s going to expand opportunities for soldiers, especially in central and western Nebraska,” Ricketts said.
The changes in Nebraska are tied to a nationwide restructuring and a reduction in the size of the Army and the Army National Guard. Because of budget cuts, the Army is reducing its troop strength from 490,000 to 450,000 and its number of combat brigades from 45 to 30.
Last week, the Army National Guard announced plans to cut its forces nationally from 350,200 to 335,000 by September 2017 through attrition. It will deactivate two brigade headquarters, several aviation battalions and numerous other units across the country.
“This is an overall Army effort to match our force structure to the resources available,” Army Lt. Gen. Timothy J. Kadavy, director of the Army Guard, said in a news release last week.
Kadavy is a former Nebraska adjutant general.
The state’s current adjutant general, Maj. Gen. Daryl Bohac, said Tuesday the state was fortunate to escape cuts. He said he expects that the changes will boost National Guard recruitment and retention by offering more career opportunities.
“There are only so many people that are interested in being truck drivers,” Bohac said.
In the future, he said, “A soldier can join a military police unit and stay in that career track throughout his career.”
The Iowa National Guard is making only minor changes to its force structure, said Col. Greg Hapgood, an Iowa Guard spokesman. One of the changes, though, will transfer the battalion headquarters and forward support company of an engineering unit from Fairfield, Iowa, to Columbus, Nebraska. It is part of a three-way swap of units that also involves the Missouri National Guard.
One of the Nebraska National Guard’s flagship units, the Lincoln-based 67th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, will get a new name and a new mission as part of the realignment.
The unit was known as the 67th Infantry Brigade from its creation in 1917 until 2002, when it became the 67th Area Support Group.
Starting in 2007, it became part of an Army experiment in creating 10 battlefield surveillance brigades, whose job was to gather intelligence and funnel it to division commanders. Seven of the brigades were part of the National Guard.
Now the Army is eliminating the seven Guard brigades. The Nebraska unit is being converted into the 67th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, with a focus on command, support, and signal communications jobs.
“This has changed our landscape in very good ways,” Bohac said.
He said the restructuring has been in the works for several years. It will take about three years for all the changes to be completed. Some soldiers will be retrained for new missions.
“This is a game-changer for soldiers,” Bohac said. “We’ll be a stronger National Guard than we are today.”
Among the other planned changes:
» A chemical unit in O’Neill will become a field maintenance unit.
» A transportation unit in York will become an engineer unit.
» A division main command post detachment, a military history detachment and a cavalry support company will be added in Lincoln.
» A quartermaster detachment in Mead will be deactivated, and a parachute rigger support team will be created in its place.
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