According to the Associated Press news service, the Bush Administration was about 2,000 troops shy of its goal to have 2,500 National Guardsmen on border duty by the end of June. National Guard Bureau officials told AP that there were at least 2,000 others within the Border States who were either in training or helping to plan the mission. AP reports that, so far, only 10 states had signed agreements with the Pentagon for their Guardsmen to deploy, some have been holding back because of floods and fires within their own states, while others wanted concrete assurances that the Pentagon would pay.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited the site of U.S. Space Command’s future home Dec. 12 and endorsed the move to establish the headquarters in Alabama after years of political back and forth.
