Army Reserve and Guard Not Sure How Many Fit to Fight?

GAO: Army Reserve, Guard don’t know how many soldiers are fit to fight 
Stars and Stripes
By Jennifer H. Svan
Published: August 7, 2015

The GAO evaluated data from January 2015 regarding 85,000 soldiers in six units. Of these, about 66,000 soldiers were listed as available and 19,000 were listed as nonavailable.

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — The Army Reserve and Army National Guard can’t properly determine how many of their soldiers are fit to fight, sometimes listing jailed soldiers as available to conduct missions, the Government Accountability Office says in a recent report.

The nonpartisan GAO also determined that hundreds of soldiers who were reported as ready to to serve were actually ineligible to mobilize and deploy under Army guidance.

The inconsistencies suggest the components’ overall nonavailability rates as of January — 22 percent in the Reserve and 21 percent in the National Guard — could be even higher.

The audit highlights the problem at a time when both the Army and Reserve components are drawing down, making accurate tracking of soldier availability even more critical, the GAO said. read more here