Major Christopher Niesen served as an Active Component/Reserve Component (AC/RC) advisor to the 29th Brigade, Hawaii National Guard in 2004 in support of a deployment to the Horn of Africa (HOA) as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. In this interview, Niesen enumerates many of the difficulties of AC/RC duty, including 38 training days per year, a training and assessment model (TAM) that was neither up to date nor useful, a lack of current equipment, the adversarial positions of the advisors and their units, state ownership of the Guard units, and a Guard culture that is not easy for Active Component soldiers to adapt to. His AC/RC unit was further challenged by being stretched from Alaska through California, Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa. Niesen explains how he helped the Guam National Guard prepare for the rotation of an infantry company through a deployment to the HOA. His predeployment site survey revealed the need for a staff attached to the company, while the company received specialized training in protection, combat search and rescue, and satellite communications, and completed a training rotation through the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana. He notes that, as a result of their individual work experiences, all Guard units bring a hidden skill set which can dramatically improve that unit's chances for success. Niesen also points out that everyone within Pacific Command did whatever they could to help the Guard units prepare for deployment. Upon deploying, he reports that the Guam National Guard received nothing but accolades from all concerned in the HOA and that they established very close working relationships with the British units there. Niesen recommends that the TAM be changed so that squads should be evaluated through platoon-level exercises.

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