Major changes are coming for the North Carolina National Guard. But so far nothing related to the Trump Administration’s controversial use of guard troops in Democrat-led cities.
As part of an ongoing Army-wide transformation, the state guard’s largest unit, the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team, will be remade as a lighter, faster-moving and more easily deployable force, said Brigadier General Charles “Wes” Morrison, an assistant Adjutant General.
The 30th has nearly 4,000 citizen soldiers. It started life as a light infantry division, which it was in World War I and World War II, said Morrison, who has been with the state guard for three decades.
"We're going back to our roots in terms of that," he said.
Morrison, who led the military’s response to Helene, said the 30th will be one of seven similar sized guard units around the country to transition to this type of fighting force, which will be called a Mobile Brigade Combat Team.
Morrison said the Army is responding to the changing nature of warfare and the threats the nation faces now. He said the Ukraine war has shown the importance of having a lighter, more mobile infantry force.
“And then also thinking about potential conflicts in the Pacific, where it's important for rapid movement of brigade combat teams," he said. "Armor brigade combat teams do not lend themselves to easy movement in a littoral environment."
In other words, it’s hard to move heavy armored vehicles around while island-hopping, especially when contesting air and sea transportation routes with a powerful foe like China.
The metamorphosis begins in the next few weeks. In the process, the 30th will lose up to nearly 90 tanks and dozens of Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
"We're closing a chapter that was marked by being the first National Guard brigade combat team to deploy to a combat theater as a brigade and operate as a brigade, and we're certainly going to keep all that lineage and honors," Morrison said, referring to the first of the unit's two combat deployments to Iraq.
In its new role, the 30th will be rebuilt around teams using the Army’s new pickup-truck-sized infantry squad vehicle. That new truck saw its first operational use last year, when active-duty troops from the 101st Airborne Division used it during the aftermath of Helene in western North Carolina.
Morrison led the joint guard and active duty military response and said the vehicle's performance on the terrain there was eye-opening.
"We found out pretty quickly that the high water vehicles which are so good in the eastern part of the state, getting to communities, were not as effective in the mountains," Morrison said. "But these infantry squad vehicles were much more effective at getting into isolated communities."
Which raises the topic of the other major change coming to the North Carolina National Guard.
As it reconfigures, it will put a major unit of about 500 soldiers in Western North Carolina.
Morrison said that will bring a number of benefits, including faster disaster response in the West, especially given that it will be equipped with the new light trucks.
"We're going to have a ready made platform that we can reach isolated communities if, God forbid, we have something else happen, like Helene in the future," he said.
He also said the new unit in Western North Carolina may boost recruiting and improve the quality of life for guard troops who live there and no longer will have to drive several hours for their regular training days.
"The recruiters for years have been asking if we could re-look at our force structure across the state in terms of combat arms, whether it was infantry or armor, and try to get people closer to an armory, to where they could serve and be closer in the community,” he said.
The National Guard has been under a spotlight because of the Trump Administration's decision to deploy troops to some cities where local officials haven’t sought help, including Washington, D.C.
The President also signed an executive order directing state guards to create units to help federal, state, and local law enforcement stop civil disturbances.
Morrison said North Carolina guard leaders haven’t heard anything else about that order. Nor is he aware of any plans to deploy the North Carolina guard for domestic crime fighting missions.
He notes that the North Carolina guard already has a reaction force that's trained specifically to respond to civil disturbances.
"Basically, what I have seen come out on (Trump's executive order), we would already have met that criteria for that," he said. "I wouldn't see any change on that, but we've not received any more information on it."
He also said those high-profile deployments of other states' guards don't seem to be affecting morale or recruiting here. Indeed, the North Carolina guard is having its best recruiting year since the pandemic.
He said the guard made some substantial changes to its recruiting approach, including things like designating experienced recruiters as mentors for new recruiters. Also, recruiters have boosted their efforts to spend time in high schools, which wasn’t possible during the pandemic.
Morrison said he hasn’t heard much from the troops about how they feel about those from other states being deployed to U.S. cities.
"When I interact with folks, it's not usually a topic of conversation that comes up," he said. "But I also tell people, when I'm addressing soldiers, there's a lot of noise right now."
"We all have something in common, which is the oath that we took," Morrison said. "If you focus on that and what we have in common and what our current job is that’s has been put before us, then we'll be okay on that."
This story was produced by the American Homefront Project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans.
