On November 21st, Jared Serbu wrote for FederalNewsRadio.com on how the National Guard is trying to stay operationally relevant as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq wind down. Gen. Craig McKinley, Chief of the National Guard, put forward a few interesting ideas that would better integrate the Guard's cyber capabilities. The article quoted Gen. Craig as saying "Both the Air Force and the Army understand we have civilian-acquired skills that could be used in cyber for example . . . Rather than go out and create little niche missions, which is kind of where we are today, I want to work with (U.S. Cyber Command Commander) Gen. (Keith) Alexander and contribute Army guardsmen and Air guardsmen to his force so we can utilize the most skilled people we have out in the field. That's our next step. We don't need to have a cyber Pearl Harbor to discover that we need to plan for this."
Gen. Craig made a very interesting point when he said that the Guard play a big role in the cyber field. Gen. Craig noted that the military simply can't pay cyber experts what the private sector can. However, through the Guard, those cyber experts can make the big bucks in a civilian capacity while still putting their cyber knowledge to use in a military capacity. Furthermore, the military continually loses a lot of its cyber-talent when trained airmen and soldiers leave after their service commitment. The Guard could, in a sense, retain a lot of these cyber-talents by transitioning these soldiers and airmen to the Guard.
The source article can be found here.
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