SPECTRUM: What’s the point in a disarmed, ineffective ASDF

If elected governor, would Mike Dunleavy be willing to support the restoration of the Alaska State Defense Force (ASDF), as proposed under SB111?

In early March, 2018, Governor Bill Walker allowed the destruction of administrative and personnel records of the ASDF older than 2013. Effectively, the history of the ASDF prior to 2013 has been erased.

The personnel records of the Alaska State Troopers are kept for 50 years before disposal. The records of the National Guard and Naval Militia are kept indefinitely.

Gov. Walker also allowed BG Hummel to order the unwarranted dismissal of the older members of the ASDF, the pre-Walker ASDF members.

In 2015, Governor Walker was seeking a means to restore a military presence to the Bush with the devastating reductions in force of Alaska’s National Guard by President Obama. Walker had decided to use the ASDF as that means. His vision was seriously flawed in both concept and execution by BG Laurie Hummel, due to her ignorance of the ASDF. The governor’s plan called for pay for Bush ASDF recruits. The ASDF members on the road system would remain unpaid volunteers. A discriminatory solution at best.

Part of the ASDF history erased is the 8 years the ASDF acted as an armed state military police constabulary authorized use of the member’s personal arms in their militia duties by former Gov. Tony Knowles on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the attack on the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon. Armed ASDF personnel performed armed duty many times between 2001 and 2009 without incident.

In 2008, under former Gov. Sarah Palin, the ASDF’s disaster response mission was ended and the members barred use of arms for militia duty. In 2010, Gov. Sean Parnell relegated the ASDF to the status of a state military reserve without a mission or purpose. The standing up of the 761st Military Police Battalion of the ARNG was the reason Palin and Parnell felt the ASDF was no longer needed. The 761st was stood down in March, 2017 as part of Obama’s Reduction in Force.

I wonder if Governor Walker would disarm the Alaska State Troopers or the water quality technicians of the Dept. of Environmental Conservation? Why are they armed? For self-protection.

By 2015, the 207th Arctic Scout Battalion (ABN) headquartered in Bethel was reduced to 41 personnel. It was this vacuum that Governor Walker intended to fill using the ASDF as a disarmed, ineffective scouting unit roughly patterned on the Canadian Rangers, except the Canadian Rangers are armed, part of the Canadian military and have police powers. In 2016, he asked the Legislature for $2M to fund his initiative. The Legislature refused funding.

In a meeting at Jitters in Eagle River in Jan., 2016, Deputy Commissioner Robert Doehl revealed why the 207th was unable to meet recruiting goals. He stated that less than 1% of those between the ages of 17 and 35 living in the Bush were eligible for military service. More than 99% were ineligible, because of criminal records and educational disqualifications.

Walker needed the ASDF to lower its recruiting standards to allow felons to be enlisted in the ASDF. To accomplish this, the “old” ASDF members had to go. They had refused to agree to such a reduction in standards.

From 2001-2009, the ASDF’s mission was to support local and state law enforcement by relieving them of duties that interfered with their primary law enforcement mission. During the 2006 Richardson Highway flood response, using ASDF to man checkpoints saved the state a minimum of $100,000 in labor costs and allowed the Glennallen AST Detachment to focus on its law enforcement mission.

Governor Walker has erased the history of the ASDF prior to 2013 and forcibly discharged its remaining former state military police constables. Walker has decided to pretend that disarmed military personnel are somehow able to restore order in an emergency, given Alaska’s rising crime rate.

Given the internal and external threats to national security, the potential for a major natural disaster, and rising Alaska crime, Walker is living in a dream world where no one is hurt and none steal or harm their neighbors. Then, again, this is the Governor that signed SB91 making more Alaskans victims of crime, and who appointed an Adjutant General who oversees an ineffective organized militia that now exists largely on paper.

I believe Mike Dunleavy would be up to the challenges Walker will leave behind, but will he be another governor who maintains a disarmed, ineffective ASDF?