What Has NGAUS Done for You?

Most of the Guard’s benefits and much of its major equipment isn’t a product of Pentagon generosity.

2024

NGAUS achieves some seemingly small victories in the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act that could make a big difference in the lives of some Soldiers and Airmen.

One is language that extends military technicians until age 62. Another provision increases paid military leave for federal employees from 15 to 20 days a year.

Successes in defense appropriations are limited, however. The National Guard Counterdrug received $305.8 million, a nearly $200 million boost over the president’s budget request. There was also $850 million in the congressionally directed National Guard and Reserve Equipment Account, which also starts at $0 in the president’s spending proposal.

But lawmakers passed a stopgap budget to fund the government through the end of fiscal 2025. It includes new equipment for the Guard beyond what was in the president’s original budget request.

Such congressional add-ons have been critical to Guard equipment modernization in recent years.

2023

The National Guard gets another four-star general, parental leave parity and some progress toward fighter recapitalization. All three items were NGAUS legislation priorities included in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.

The next National Guard Bureau vice chief will be the new four-star. The post has long been held by a three-star general. A fourth star will place the position on the same level as the other vice chiefs in the Pentagon. The current rank puts NGB at a disadvantage in some meetings.

Parental leave parity provides all birth mothers, spouses, partners and adoptive and foster parents with three months of excused absences from drill with retirement points.

Currently, under the Reserve Component Maternity Leave Program, only birth mothers are eligible for the benefit. Active-duty birth mothers, spouses, partners and adoptive and foster parents are eligible for 12 weeks of maternity leave.

Additionally, the association scored some equipment wins in fiscal 2024 defense appropriations, including convincing Congress to add funds for another eight C-130J Super Hercules cargo planes. There is also $140 million to rebuild Army Guard Humvees.

NGAUS also makes some significant progress on military construction. Fiscal 2024 defense appropriations provide nearly $621 million, or $280 million above the president’s request, for Army Guard projects and $296 million, which is $117 million above the request for the Air Guard.

2022

Equipment tops the list of NGAUS legislative accomplishments. Among them are the Army National Guard’s first MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aerial systems, which Army leaders consider essential to pinpointing field artillery in future fights.

All of the active-component Army’s divisions have them, but the service has never fielded one to the Guard. So, the association and some adjutants general appeal to Congress, which adds funds for 12 Gray Eagles, enough for one Guard division, to fiscal 2023 defense appropriations.

Lawmakers also add money for another 16 C-130Js for the Air Guard.

Additionally, the association convinces lawmakers to include a provision in the fiscal 2023 NDAA to backdate the effective date of rank for any Guard officer waiting more than 100 days for federal recognition of their state promotion after Jan. 1, 2024.

2021

Guardsmen who receive incentive pay for special skills or hazardous duty will be compensated at the same rate as their active-component counterparts because of language in the fiscal 2022 NDAA.

Incentive-pay parity is a NGAUS legislative priority. Unfortunately, the pay didn’t begin right away. A late addition to the provision requires the Pentagon to certify to Congress by Sept. 30, 2022, that incentive-pay parity doesn’t adversely affect any component. As of April 2025, lawmakers still had not received the Pentagon certification.

NGAUS also records some big wins on equipment in fiscal 2022 defense appropriations. The biggest is 16 C-130Js for the Air Guard that weren’t in the president’s budget request. There are also 90 M1A2 Abrams tanks, 20 more than proposed, and 33 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, nine more than were requested, for the Army Guard.

2020

Some new benefits and greater eligibility for some existing veterans’ programs are the leading accomplishments.

The new benefits include paid maternity leave for drill-status women. The reserve-component maternity leave program, which the Pentagon implemented in 2022, provides excused absences with pay and retirement points for up to three months of unit training assemblies.

Meanwhile, the Johnny Isakson and David P. Roe M.D. Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act of 2020 for the first time credits service under Title 32 toward Department of Veterans Affairs home loans.

2019

The final required major benefit fix to mobilization authority 12304b tops a strong year of accomplishments. Congress created the new authority in 2012 to give the services easier access to the Guard and Reserve for preplanned missions. But it lacked the personnel benefits in other authorities, including premobilization and transitional health care and credit toward the GI Bill and early retirement.

Adding the three benefits was a NGAUS priority for four years.

The association also convinces lawmakers to include a provision in the fiscal 2020 NDAA that opens TRICARE Reserve Select in 2030 to dual-status technicians and other Guardsmen and Reservists who work full-time for the federal government.

NGAUS also helps get 64 new Black Hawks for the Army Guard and four new C-130Js for the Air Guard.

In addition, lawmakers for the eighth consecutive year add $100 million to the budget to rebuild Humvees.

Unfortunately, the Pentagon later reprograms the Humvee and National Guard and Reserve Equipment account funding along with two of the C-130Js from fiscal 2020 appropriations.

2018

NGAUS convinces Congress to add language to the fiscal 2019 NDAA that authorizes the service secretaries to adjust the effective date of promotion for Guard officers who experience undue delays in getting federal recognition of their state promotions.

Another provision requires the Army and the Air Force to report to Congress on how they intend to accelerate federal recognition process. With lawmakers focusing on the issue, average FEDREC wait times drop from 293 days in March to 175 days in October.

2017

NGAUS is among the driving forces behind the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017, also known as the Forever GI Bill.

In addition to eliminating the expiration date on benefits for anyone who left the military after Jan. 1, 2013, it provides the Post-9/11 GI Bill to those mobilized under 12304b. And the fiscal 2018 NDAA provides pre-deployment and transitional TRICARE health coverage to those on 12304b orders.

2016

Among the association’s victories is a change in the federal definition of veteran to include all Guard and Reserve retirees. The old definition limited veteran status to those who served more than 179 days on federal active duty for other than training.

2015

NGAUS supports successful efforts in Congress to prohibit the retirement of A-10, which it believes has no peers in close-air support.

2014

NGAUS works with Congress to establish the National Commission on the Future of the Army. Evaluating the Army’s controversial plan to transfer all of the Army Guard’s AH-64 Apache attack helicopters to the active-component is among the commission’s assignments.

In the end, the commission recommends maintaining Apaches in the Guard.

2013

The fiscal 2014 NDAA also includes increased procurement of UH-72 Lakota helicopters, requires a Defense Department report on the Guard’s role in U.S. Cyber Command and cyber operations and places limits on cancelling Guard deployments.

2012

Spurred by the association, Congress beats back most of the personnel and aircraft cuts the Air Force wants to take from the Air Guard. And to ensure more Guard input in the development of future budget requests, lawmakers, at the association’s urging, establish the National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force.

At the request of NGAUS and the adjutants general, Congress adds $100 million to fiscal 2013 defense appropriations to create a program to rebuild old Army Guard Humvees.

Additionally, the association leads the charge against a recommendation by the 11th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation to cut drill pay in half.

Compiled from official reference materials available in the library of the National Guard Memorial, the NGAUS headquarters in Washington, D.C.

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Top 10 All-Time NGAUS Victories

1. Guard Recognized and Funded as Reserve of the Army (1903)
2. NGB Chief Added to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (2011)
3. Drill Pay (1916)
4. Thwarted Attempts to Cut or Relegate Guard (1915, 1920, 1944, 1948, 1959, 1963, 1974, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016)
5. Guard Included in Plans for a Separate Air Force (1944)
6. Federal Retirement Pay (1948)
7. Defense Funds for Armory Construction (1950)
8. Active Guard and Reserve Program (1978)
9. Civil-Service Status for Full-Time Technicians (1968)
10. (Tie) Federal Education Benefits (1984, 2008, 2010, 2017)
(Tie) Low-Cost Health Care for Most Guardsman* (2006)

*Exception is Guardsmen who are federal government employees, including dual-status technicians

Honorable Mention: Civil Relief Act protections for those mobilized Under title 32 (2002), incentive-pay parity (2021), national cemetery burial rights (1959), VA home loans (1992), benefit fixes to mobilization authority 12304b (2017, 2019), Guard and Reserve maternity leave (2020 & 2023).