Four Stars

The U.S. military’s highest-ranking officer experienced something of a homecoming here at the 147th General Conference & Exhibition.

Immediately after his introduction by Maj. Gen. Paul Rogers, the NGAUS chairman, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, voiced words that likely touched many in the packed house at the Baird Center, the city’s convention center.

“Wow!” Caine said after getting a lengthy standing ovation as the first speaker during the First Business/Professional Development Session on Aug. 23. “It is humbling to be home.”

Caine is the first career National Guard officer to be the principal military advisor to the president and the secretary of war. He began his Guard career in New York in 1994 after flight school. He transferred to the District of Columbia Guard in 1998.

Most of his service was full time, but he was part time from 2009 to 2016, juggling his military responsibilities, including flying an F-16 fighter, with a budding civilian career as a “serial entrepreneur and investor,” according to his Air Force bio.

Caine retired in December and was working in the private sector when President Donald Trump asked him to return as JCS chairman. He had caught Trump’s attention while serving as a senior officer in the task force fighting the Islamic State in 2018. The Senate confirmed him to his new post in April.

“The Guard has given me far more than I could ever give back,” Caine told attendees. “I’m gifted to have this incredible vantage point of seeing what the Guard does for the nation, not only overseas but right here at home.”

He highlighted some of the Guard’s recent achievements, notably its role in Operation Midnight Hammer, the successful strike on Iranian nuclear weapons facilities in June. Guardsmen with the Missouri Guard’s 131st Bomb Wing teamed with their Whiteman Air Force Base 509th Bomb Wing counterparts to complete the mission — the largest B-2 Spirit strike in history.

“It was weapons builders from the Guard that created those bombs that did our nation’s business,” Caine said, “and Guardsmen who went and got after it in the darkness of night to do the things that our nation calls upon us to do.”

Addressing other global challenges, he likened today’s threats to a Tom Clancy novel, citing the war in Ukraine, continuing crises across the Middle East, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and an increasingly assertive China aligned with other adversaries.

“Our global-risk score really has never been higher,” he said, “but I’m comforted by the fact that you are there. You are essential to how we reestablish deterrence, rebuild our military and achieve peace through strength.”

In addition to his keynote speech, Caine attended the Adjutants General Reception on Aug. 22 and spoke with a group of 15 company-grade officers before the First Business/Professional Development Session.

Our global-risk score really has never been higher.

—Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Fleet Master Chief David L. Isom, the chairman’s senior enlisted advisor and a longtime Navy SEAL, accompanied Caine to the conference. Isom, who had been in the position only since June, met with a group of Wisconsin Guard enlisted personnel that included drill-status Guardsmen. It was thought to be his first engagement with lower-enlisted Guardsmen.

Caine was one of three members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to speak in Milwaukee. Army Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, Air Force Gen. Steve Nordhaus, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, also spoke Aug. 23.

George focused his remarks on the Army Transformation Initiative, which promises sweeping changes for the force. Announced earlier this year, ATI reflects a rapid evolution in the character of war. It also recognizes that military technology is no longer ahead of what’s available in the commercial sector, he said.

The Army’s senior officer explained the effort centers on “taking lessons observed and making them lessons learned. To make a lesson learned, you have to change how you train and operate, you have to change how you’re organized, and you have to change how you buy things.”

Brigade combat teams will likely feel ATI’s impact the most in the Guard. Most will transform to a new concept, the mobile brigade combat team, which will be smaller and more mobile than their predecessors. Virginia’s 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team will be the first in the Guard, he said.

“We are going to do that in the next year, and we’re going to do it very rapidly,” George said. “Every Soldier and NCO [in the brigade] that I’ve spoken to has said, ‘We’re ready now, we want to go faster.’”

ATI was also the topic of conversation in a meeting George held at the conference with several adjutants general. He also met with retired Maj. Gen. Francis M. McGinn, the NGAUS president, and retired Col. Jon “Ice” Eisberg, the association vice president for government affairs. This was the third consecutive year George spoke at the conference.

You are the heart of the National Guard.

—Gen. Steve Nordhaus, Chief of the National Guard Bureau

Nordaus made his conference debut as NGB chief and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He and Senior Enlisted Advisor John Raines outlined their priorities and highlighted the Guard’s unique value as an elite, cost-effective force.

“You are the heart of the National Guard,” Nordhaus told conference attendees. “Our 433,000 Soldiers and Airmen make us a lethal warfighting and response force. Thanks to you, your families and your employers for ensuring our Guard remains Always Ready, Always There.”

Each assuming their roles last fall, the NGB leadership team charted their priorities for the Guard: warfighters and families, readiness, partnerships and modernization. These focus areas, they said, will yield a stronger, more capable Guard.

Nordhaus also spoke during a session of the conference’s company-grade officer professional development program.

Gen. John D. Lamontagne, the commander of the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, addressed the conference Aug. 24. AMC includes more than 40 Air Guard airlift and tanker wings.

“I’m telling you, nobody can tell the difference between an active duty member and a Guard member,” he said. “Because you’re that talented. You’ve got years of experience and credibility, and you provide outstanding capability for the nation.”

Two information panel discussions were also part of the conference’s main sessions. One covered the Guard’s strategic importance in the Indo-Pacific theater. The other dealt with unmanned aerial systems.

The Indo-Pacific panel featured Hawaii Army Guard Maj. Gen. Lance Okamura, the deputy commander-Homeland Affairs for U.S. Army Pacific; Delaware Air Guard Brig. Gen. Carla Riner, the Air Guard advisor to the A/3 for Pacific Air Forces; and Brig. Gen. Paul Sellars, the assistant adjutant general-Army for Washington. Sellars provided a State Partnership perspective. Washington is linked to two nations in the region — Malaysia and Thailand.

Okamura stressed that Indo-Pacific Command isn’t fixated on “one particular nation.”

“Five of the largest militaries in the world reside in the Pacific,” he explained. “Five of the seven U.S. mutual defense treaties reside there. And most importantly, five of the nine declared nuclear nations, three which are declared hostile, reside in the Pacific Theater.”

The UAS panel included Maj. Gen. Shawn Manke, the adjutant general of Minnesota; Brig. Gen. Mitchell Johnson, the adjutant general of North Dakota; Coast Guard Capt. Rebecca L. Albert, the deputy director of operations for U.S. Northern Command; and Jack De Santis, who piloted drones on the front lines in Ukraine.

Much of the discussion focused on the increasing drone activity in the skies over the United States, but De Santis offered some lessons learned from his time in Ukraine and some concerns about the direction of the burgeoning UAS industry in the United States.

De Santis said the U.S. military and industry would benefit greatly from more partnership with the Ukraine veterans. “The things I’m seeing are American defense startups and defense companies looking at Ukraine and what we did there, and they’re trying to emulate that,” he explained. “But they’re copying our mistakes, because they don’t understand the ins and outs of how and why we did things.”

The NGAUS conference is the association’s annual business meeting and delegates adopted legislative resolutions, approved a change to the bylaws and elected new members to the board of directors.

The resolutions will serve as the basis of the association’s action plan next year when Congress takes up fiscal 2027 defense legislation. In all, delegates considered 232 resolutions and adopted 223 (100 Joint, 22 Army and 101 Air).

They also exercised a provision in the bylaws approved last year and deleted 156 resolutions that had been on the books for more than a decade but were no longer relevant, according to Eisberg, the NGAUS vice president for government affairs.

Next year, delegates will consider resolutions approved from 2015 to 2018 for deletion and the following year 2019 through 2024, Eisberg said. Reducing the number of resolutions streamlines the process of prioritizing the issues the association’s legislative staff takes to Capitol Hill.

Delegates approved a bylaws change this year that alters the process required to reset NGAUS membership dues. Gone are the specific annual dues amounts and the costs of life memberships. Those fees will now be set by a two-thirds vote of the association board subject to ratification by delegates at the next general conference.

This change allows flexibility and preserves member oversight, said Brig. Gen. Joe Hargett of Mississippi, the chair of the NGAUS bylaws committee.

This year’s board elections included the three representatives (TAG, Army and Air) in Area I and Area IV, the company-grade representative-Air and the retired/separated representative-Air. All three Area I representatives were reelected: Maj. Gen. Gary Keefe, the adjutant general of Massachusetts; Brig. Gen. Jeff LaPierre of Connecticut as the Army rep; and retired Col. Steve Greco of New Hampshire as the Air rep.

Area IV will have two new representatives as delegates elected Brig. Gen. Christopher Thomas of Mississippi as the new Army rep and Lt. Col. Seana Eason of Arkansas as the new Air rep.

Eason currently serves as the NGAUS Awards Committee chair. Maj. Gen. Thomas Mancino of Oklahoma was reelected as the Areas IV TAG rep.

Delegates also elected Capt. Ashlyn Garrett of Arkansas as the new company gradeAir representative and reelected retired Maj. Gen. April Vogel of Maryland as the retired/ separated-Air rep.

John Goheen is the NGAUS director of communications. He can be reached at john. [email protected].

Full-length videos of most conference presentations are available on the NGAUS YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/NGAUS1878.

Photos by Drake Sorey