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The Army Guard’s top officer said extremism has no place in the force and discussed efforts to diversify the ranks during remarks last week.
Lt. Gen. Jon. A. Jensen spoke during a virtual event hosted by the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C.
His remarks focused on the future of the force, but touched on extremism and diversity efforts while fielding questions from a virtual audience.
Jensen also touched on the Guard’s recruiting efforts, which have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve had a difficult past couple of years,” he said. With recruiting down, the Guard has relied on lower attrition and higher retention to maintain its personnel end strength.
The question, Jensen said, is how long is the lag in recruiting going to take place once the pandemic ends?
Jensen said his first responsibility as director of the Army Guard is meeting end strength. But he said that force must better reflect the nation as a whole.
Diversity should be a key focus for all the leadership of the Army Guard, he said.
“We are a very diverse organization in part because we come from our communities,” Jensen said. But some deliberate decisions by state leaders “don’t always set us up to be as successful as we can be.”
Jensen said key Guard facilities are not always placed in communities where the force can attract a more diverse recruiting pool. He said states must work to ensure numerous populations are given a chance to serve.
“What we provide is opportunity. And we need to ensure we are providing our opportunities to the greatest number of people that we can,” he said.
Speaking of Minnesota, where Jensen previously served as adjutant general, he said there was tension over placing armories in the state’s large cities versus rural areas. Doing either exclusively would cut off opportunities for key populations.
“It’s all about opportunity and then creating a positive command climate that values soldiers,” he said.
The Army as a whole must also look at recruiting and enlistment criteria that could be hampering diversity efforts, Jensen said.
If the criteria is no longer valid, the Army must get rid of it, he said. “If the ASVAB test [Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery] is a key obstacle, let’s take a look at that.”
Jensen’s remarks on extremism in the force came following a question about Guardsmen who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“It’s very obvious that extremism does not match the Army values,” he said. But he deferred questions about those cases to their state adjutants general.
“I can tell you we take extremism very serious inside the National Guard,” Jensen said. “We do truly want to have an organization that reflects the diversity and the inclusion that we believe the Army values leads us to. There’s no place for extremism in our ranks.”
Military.com reported that at least two Guard soldiers were part of the mob that ransacked the Capitol. Neither have been removed from the force, although other service members, including an Army Reservist, were discharged following reports of their involvement on Jan. 6.
