Military Personnel: Information on Selected National Guard Management Issues

In the past few years, the nation's media have focused public attention on a series of misconduct and mismanagement issues within the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard. As part of the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2003, Congress directed GAO to examine four issues related to the management of the National Guard. In this report, GAO assesses the effectiveness of the (1) procedures that the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard have established and implemented to deal with service members who stop attending required training; (2) procedures that the National Guard uses for federally recognizing state promotions of senior National Guard officers; (3) process that the National Guard uses for disciplining senior officers (colonels and generals) who are guilty of misconduct; and (4) federal protections for National Guard members or civilian federal employees who report allegations of waste, fraud, abuse, or mismanagement (whistleblowers) and the extent to which disciplinary action is taken against those in the National Guard who retaliate against whistleblowers.