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New Face
Retired Col. Jon “Ice” Eisberg has decorated his office in the National Guard Memorial with mementos from his more than 36 years in uniform.
Among them is a guidon flag from the Vermont Army National Guard Officer Candidate School, his commissioning source; a Cavalry Stetson from his time with the Maryland Army Guard’s 1st Squadron, 158th Cavalry Regiment; and graduation certificates from the multiple schools he attended. He says the keepsakes are reminders of some of the “defining moments” of his military career.
There is also a swimming fin — a Rocket fin, the kind Navy rescue swimmers use. It seems out of place with all the Army items, but the new NGAUS vice president for government affairs is not your typical retired Army Guard colonel.
Eisberg started his career in the Navy. Growing up in Maryland, he spent many summer days on his family’s sailboat on Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis, home of the U.S. Naval Academy.
The 1986 movie Top Gun was another inspiration. He enlisted after graduating high school in 1989.
While he only spent five years in the Navy, his early years in uniform and a wet suit were formative.
“The first few years have a lasting impression on anyone who served in the military,” Eisberg says. “Mine were in the Navy. It’s in my military DNA. It’s tough to get rid of, and I don’t want to get rid of it.”
So much so that he roots for the team from Annapolis in the annual Army-Navy football game. And he isn’t shy to say so.
Eisberg tells a story about golfing once with now-retired Gen. James C. McConville, the Army chief of staff from 2019 to 2023. The conversation turned to the Army-Navy game. He says he told the general, a West Point graduate, that he always roots for Navy.
“I asked General McConville if he wanted to know why,” Eisberg recalls with a laugh. “He said, ‘No.’”
His last Navy assignment was at the former Naval Air Station South Weymouth in Massachusetts, where he was an aviation anti-submarine warfare sensor operator/rescue swimmer. He got out of the Navy in 1994 to go to college at Johnson State College in nearby Vermont.
Eisberg wanted to continue to serve but Naval Reserve units within driving distance weren’t a good fit. “After jumping out of helicopters and chasing Soviet submarines around the Atlantic, I didn’t want to just sit in a building or a classroom during drills,” he says.
So, he became a scout in the Vermont Army Guard and earned his commission through the state’s OCS program. One of his classmates is now the current adjutant general of Vermont, Maj. Gen. Gregory Knight.
He moved back to Maryland after graduating college in 1998. The Sailor within flirted with going back to the Navy, but opportunities were limited in the post-Cold War era. He ended up joining the Maryland cavalry squadron, where he began to put down roots in the Guard.
“That unit was a like family,” he says. “Before that, I kind of chuckled at guys running around in Stetsons— the whole ‘cav’ thing. But then I realized the special bond that exists inside of a cavalry unit. I’m still friends with many of the folks I served with in that unit, both the Soldiers and the officers.”
While serving part time as platoon leader, he took a full-time position as a legislative assistant for Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., before spending three years as the Army programs manager in the NGAUS legislative department.
“Working first as a Senate staffer and then here in NGAUS gave me an opportunity that most company-grade officers never get,” Eisberg says, “I was rubbing elbows with the adjutants general. I was also rubbing elbows with folks from NGB, from the rest of the Pentagon, from the Senate. I gained a real strategic perspective.”
He deployed to Bosnia with 1st Squadron, 158th Cavalry Regiment, in 2001 as part of a task force under the 29th Infantry Division. Then-Maj. Gen. H Steven Blum, the division commander, led the task force. When Blum took over as National Guard Bureau chief in 2003, he persuaded his fellow Maryland Army Guard officer to come work at the NGB legislative liaison office.
Eisberg then spent 22 years as a fulltime Title 10 Army Guard officer — the first seven on one-year orders and then as part of the Active Guard Reserve program. He was senior policy advisor on Army Guard matters on the Pentagon’s Reserve Forces Policy Board in his last position. Before that, he was dean of students, an assistant professor and the senior Guard chair at National War College, National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
An earlier tour saw him as the bilateral affairs officer and deputy chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation under U.S. European Command at the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. He also served a deployment in Afghanistan as an information operations chief and targeting officer with a joint special operations command task force.
This is where I can help make a difference.
—Retired Col. Jon "Ice" Eisberg, the NGAUS vice president for government affairs
Eisberg retired approximately 30 months early from uniformed service to take charge of the planning and execution of NGAUS advocacy.
After word circulated last fall that the association was looking for candidates to succeed retired Col. Mike Hadley, who had been NGAUS VP since 2016, Eisberg says he started getting calls and texts from former mentors and colleagues encouraging him to apply. He didn’t need much encouragement.
“I just had a gut feeling that this was the right path,” says Eisberg, who lives with his wife and two young sons in Arlington, Virginia. “There’s a proud tradition here at NGAUS. This is where I can help make a difference.”
He started at the association April 1 while on terminal leave. He was able to hit the ground running due to his familiarity with NGAUS long-standing processes. This includes the association’s cyclical resolutions process. It begins early every year in the state and territory Guard associations and culminates at the annual general conference. The ratified resolutions then become the basis of the next year’s NGAUS legislative action plan.
“We’re a bottom-up, not a top-down organization,” Eisberg says. “Our grassroots, our state associations, our individual members, they tell us what to do. That’s who we work for.”
He adds that his position is government affairs, not just legislative affairs, hence the title.
“Not everything happens on Capitol Hill,” he explains. “There are other avenues to achieve our objectives, and that’s working across the government enterprise. I’m talking about the executive branch — the White House, the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Educating them all as to who we are and what we need can only help us better serve our states and the nation.”
Eisberg is a big believer in both the association and its cause.
“The National Guard is really a fascinating organization,” he says. “Across our ranks, there is a sense of patriotism, of community, of service. It’s timeless and it connects us. In the 1700s, we were all farmers. Today, we have people working in cyber and finance. The common thread is, we have always been willing to drop what we are doing to serve.
“And we predate the military services,” Eisberg adds. “I like to joke with my Marine buddies that the Marine Corps was founded with the help of the National Guard, out of the militia in Tun Tavern in Philadelphia. Many of the riflemen who signed up that first day in 1775 to form the Marine Corps were Pennsylvania militiamen. They don’t like hearing that, but it’s true.”
“Jon has a real passion for the Guard’s place in national defense,” says retired Maj. Gen. Francis M. McGinn, the NGAUS president. “That and his diverse experience really stood out among the excellent pool of candidates we had for the position.”
Jon has a real passion for the Guard's place in national defense.
—Retired Maj. Gen. Francis M. McGinn, the NGAUS president
He takes charge of NGAUS advocacy in the nation’s capital at a challenging time.
The association was already in the midst of a multiyear effort to bring the Guard equipment and benefits parity with the active-component Army and Air Force. Now, the Army is embarking on the Army Transformation Initiative, which aims to transform the service into a leaner, more lethal force by “adapting the way it fights, trains, organizes, and buys equipment.”
ATI, Eisberg says, is also designed to save money. “The Army’s facing a downsizing to help the Navy and the Air Force grow,” he says. “There’s no other way to say it.”
As part of the effort, Army leaders want to field a new generation of aircraft, vehicles and other equipment. Some of it is undoubtedly needed to keep the Army ahead of its potential adversaries. The problem is many Army Guard units are already behind a generation.
“We’re looking at an initiative that, at first announcement, will be implemented equally across the three components of the Army,” Eisberg says. “However, I’ve gone through many these over my career and that tells me there will likely be challenges with the equity that is being portrayed.
“I think our biggest challenge right now is making sure, one, that we have a voice in the room,” he says. “And, two, that the implementation of a transformation initiative is truly implemented equally across the active Army, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve. I’m not going to say that I mistrust the Army, but I’ve gone through this dance a few times. The active institution is going to try to protect itself.
Eisberg says the Army leaders need to understand that the Guard is not a threat but a solution.
“Simple economics: The Guard can maintain combat capability at a much lower cost than the active Army,” he says. “Therefore, why not put more of it in the Army Guard? The nation would be better served in the event of unforeseen contingencies.”
He says an overarching challenge is how many senior leaders and their staff still don’t understand the Guard.
He tells a story about a lunch he had “a few years ago” with one of his Navy helicopter pilots who had risen to a three-star admiral.
“We were having a great discussion,” Eisberg shares. “He said, ‘Jon, why does a governor need Apache helicopters?’ I said the governor doesn’t need Apache helicopters. America needs Apache helicopters when we go into largescale combat operations.
“Our active-duty military is a great organization, but in large scale war, our active components are going to be degraded quickly, and the nation will need reserve components that have the same training, the same equipment, the same dedication and the same patriotism as the first force in the fight,” he says he told his old colleague. “We can’t just create it out of thin air. We need to create it today.
“So, a governor doesn’t need combat capability in the Guard,” he says. “America needs it in the Guard!”
John Goheen is the NGAUS director of communications. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photos by Drake Sorey
2025 NGAUS LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES
(For the deliberation of the fiscal 2026 defense authorization & appropriations acts)
Ensuring deployability, interoperability and sustainability with the active component through:
The Same Organization
● Future multidomain battlefield interoperability, including:
■ Deployable and interoperable force structure that is validated and doctrinally consistent
■ Space National Guard as the primary combat reserve component of the Space Force
■ Continued National Guard integration in the Total Force cyber mission and training
The Same Equipment
● Deployable, Interoperable and sustainable equipment
● Concurrent and proportional fielding of equipment, including:
■ UH-60M Black Hawk, MQ1C 25M Gray Eagle, F-35A Lightning II, KC-46A Pegasus, C-130J Super Hercules and Future Vertical Lift procurement
● Equipment modernization and recapitalization, including:
■ AH-64E Apache, Humvee, M1 Abrams and M2 Bradley, C-130H Hercules, A-10 Thunderbolt II, F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon
The Same Resources & Benefits
● Zero-cost TRICARE to ensure reserve-component medical readiness
● Post-9/11 GI Bill parity
● Robust National Guard & Reserve Equipment Account funding
● Tax incentives for Guardsmen and their employers
● Ready access to mental health care and suicide prevention
● Increased National Guard military construction
