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MODERATOR: Okay, welcome everyone. This is meant to be an informal event. The General will make a few remarks and we'll open it up for questions, feel free to ask, whatever you'd like to ask within the General's area of competence, which is National Guard operations and a few other areas he'll talk about.
Take it away, sir.
LTG BLUM: Okay, well good. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak with you. What I'd like to do is to make this really a roundtable where we have a discussion and we get to what you want to know as quickly as we possibly can.
Let me make sure I know who everybody is so that when we're talking I can -- hi, how are you? Good to see you. And you are, sir?
QUESTION: Ilin Stanev from the Bulgarian newspaper Capital.
LTG BLUM: Excellent, from Bulgaria. Okay.
QUESTION: Let me (inaudible). (Laughter.)
LTG BLUM: And you're from Bulgaria as well, correct?
QUESTION: Yes, I'm Ganka Gabrovska from the Bulgarian newspaper Dnevnik, but I live here now.
LTG BLUM: You live here?
QUESTION: I'm American citizen now.
LTG BLUM: Excellent, okay.
LTG BLUM: Hello. And who are you?
QUESTION: I am Joyce Karam with Al Hayat, a Pan-Arab newspaper.
LTG BLUM: Very good. Hi, Joyce.
LTG BLUM: And you're from -- (Inaudible.) ?
QUESTION: Japan. Takehiko Kajita from Kyodo News newswire.
LTG BLUM: Very good.
QUESTION: Bruno Bonamigo. I'm with CBC TV from Canada.
LTG BLUM: From Canada.
QUESTION: I'm Charles Smith, Media 24, South Africa.
LTG BLUM: South Africa.
QUESTION: I'm Cordula Meyer, Der Spiegel magazine in Germany.
LTG BLUM: Germany.
QUESTION: I'm Momcilo Pantelic from the Serbian newspaper Politika.
LTG BLUM: Excellent. Okay, very good. Well, as the chief of the National Guard Bureau, if you don't know what I do, I'll try to tell you very quickly and then I'll tell you why I think it's important that you and your readers and your audience and your local media back at home probably should have some understanding of what we do.
I am the chief of 460,000 citizen-soldiers and airmen from the Air National Guard and the Army National Guard, from every state, all of the 50 states as well as two territories -- Guam and the Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. So there are 54 entities in the United States that have something called the National Guard and the governors are the commanders-in-chief of the National Guard.
And the National Guard has two missions: One is to respond to the governors here at home for whatever need that the governors may have, to save lives or restore order or to respond to disasters here at home. And at the same time, we have a mission to respond to the President of the United States to provide trained and ready forces for the Army and the Air Force that can be used anywhere in the world where the United States and its allies are conducting military operations, whether they be humanitarian operations, peacekeeping operations, disaster response operations or counterterrorism operations like we have -- unfortunately, that we're involved in more heavily than we'd like in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Horn of Africa today.
But we also are keeping the peace in the Sinai. It is the National Guard forces that you'll see in Kosovo. It is the National Guard forces that were in Bosnia for the last several years and it is the National Guard that you'll see on the southwest border working with our border patrol, and it's the National Guard that you'll see doing the counternarcotics support for our civilian law enforcement, and it's also the Guard that fights the floods, the hurricanes, the forest fires and all of the other natural disasters that happen.
On any given day, on a typical nice day when nothing is really looking catastrophic, 17 governors have their Guard called out; 17 of the 50 governors on any given day usually call their Guard out to some degree. So we're busy every day. We're an operational force every single day here at home and, of course, I think you're painfully aware that we have about 60,000 citizen-soldiers from the National Guard overseas serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. So we are very, very vital to the war on terror and the effort to contain that threat to all of our societies.
So with that, I think what I would like to do is tell you that there is one special program that we have that should be near and dear to you, Charles from South Africa, because New York has a special relationship with your nation and Tennessee has a special relationship with Bulgaria, with the two of you. And these relationships are fairly long lasting. They started in the early '90s when the Soviet Union disintegrated and Bulgaria was able to chart its own independent and free course as a nation. And are you from Serbia?
QUESTION: Yes.
LTG BLUM: We have -- our newest partner member is in Serbia, with Serbia, and the state of Ohio. So New York is -- your partner in South Africa, Tennessee is your partner in Bulgaria and Serbia is in partnership with Ohio. And the Adjutant General of Ohio Greg Wayt is in Serbia today.
Now, what do we do with these partnerships? These partnerships -- there's a piece of paper here that tells you exactly everything you need to know about these partnerships. But what they really do is they give a long-lasting, enduring relationship that the United States is not so good at normally, and we do it much better at the local level, frankly with the state partnership programs. And the very earliest partners go back to the early '90s, as I said, and we have continued that partnership all the way through Partnership for Peace. We kept the partnership. And then when they became NATO aspirants, we kept the partnership. When many of these original nations became members of NATO, we kept the partnership. And the partnership is not conditional. It is not subject to membership in NATO. It is not subject to some of the restrictions of other treaty arrangements between nations. It is truly a marriage of two equal partners, where Bulgaria and Tennessee decide what is good for them and they determine what the partnership does.
Now clearly, your ambassador, your government, our ambassador and our government, have to approve what we're doing, but there's wide latitude for what we do. And in the Middle East we are very proud to say we have now a new relationship between Colorado and Jordan to add. Our newest partnership in that part of the world, in the Muslim world, is with Indonesia. Now, Indonesia is not a Middle Eastern country, but it is the largest populated Muslim nation in the world. And we have a partnership between Indonesia and Hawaii, two island nations, both Pacific-oriented but very, very different, but we think with great, great potential for both of them. So I thought this would be an interesting thing for you in the area that you cover and for certainly you, being from Serbia. So these are very important things, I think, and interesting things maybe for you.
Now in the Pacific, we have partnerships between the Philippines and we have partnerships with Thailand as well and now Indonesia. And these partnerships are not alliances; they're truly partnerships and they can be military-to-military. So you may see the National Guard training with your soldiers and people in your country or they may come to the United States and train with us here at home. We do it both ways. But it goes beyond the military-to-military to the military-to-civilian and civilian-to-civilian.
For instance, we think there'll be a great opportunity with Bulgaria in the medical area, the educational area, the agricultural area; the same with Serbia, with Jordan and with Tunisia and Morocco. And Ghana in Africa, we will be working on some other things. And one unique relationship we have seven island nations in the Caribbean, the Wayward and Windward Islands, that have a special security system, the Regional Security System, with seven independent island nations that all work together so that they can deal with criminal activity, illegal immigration, smuggling drug and human trafficking that goes on and they all work together on that.
We will be going to Sofia in May to conduct a regional security cooperation meeting between the ten states of the United States and the ten nations that occupy the land mass between the Black Sea and the Adriatic, so that would be Romania and Bulgaria, it would Albania and Macedonia, it would be Bosnia and Herzegovina, it would be Croatia and Slovenia, it would Montenegro, it would be Serbia, it would be Albania. Who did I miss? Hungary, pardon me. Thank you, very good, so that's the tenth.
And we are very optimistic because we had a very successful four-day conference with that same group about seven months ago, or six months ago, in Dubrovnik. And what will they work on? They will work on border security. They will work on common problems of smuggling and narcotics and terrorism. But most importantly, what they seem most keenly interested in is how do they protect their people from things -- I'm trying to use a word that will translate in all of your cultures and languages -- but they would be either manmade or not manmade disasters, like earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, floods, tsunamis, things that happen to all of us, unfortunately. And when it happens to any of our countries, it usually overwhelms the ability of our civilian apparatus, our civilian government, and the civilian responders, and the military has an opportunity to come in and assist in a positive manner that is appreciated by the citizens because they're coming in to save their lives or to save their property or to restore order or bring normal activities back to that nation.
When those kinds of things happen, an earthquake in the Balkans will not honor the political boundaries of Bulgaria and Romania and perhaps other neighboring states. So the effects could run across the lines of the map and you may find Serbia working -- having to work very closely with Bosnia and Herzegovina in way that they might otherwise not want to be inclined to work so closely together. And you may see the military of Bosnia and Herzegovina working shoulder to shoulder with the Serbian army in a positive manner, seen as "a force for good." (Inaudible in Serbian) in your case. They'd actually be seen as a force for good right there in that region.
So it is a tremendous tool and the state partnership allows those techniques, how we use our equipment, how we plan for this, how we respond for this -- not that we have it so perfect, but nobody has it perfect. Each one of us does something better than someone else, and when we work together we can all take the very best skill sets from each other and learn from one another. And then if we have to work together at the time of a crisis, where we have to come together and we have to either bring food or medicine or bring medical people in or search-and-extraction people, people to rescue people, where we have to fly people out, then we have worked together before, we have common understanding of each other's strengths and limitations, and we can do it better together as a team, if that makes sense to you.
So that's kind of my pitch to you. And what I'd really rather do is go around the table at this time, if you don't mind, and find out what you care about because it may not be what I'm talking about. And since you took the time to come here, I'd like to get to your questions. So who wants to go first?
QUESTION: Joyce Karam with Al Hayat, a Pan-Arab newspaper. I'm interested if you can tell us about the process, how it works? Like let's say, there's al-Qaida member in Iraq, there's far too many in Al Anbar (ph) and you need to, you know, target him or her. Do you get orders from the President or do you -- I mean, do you ask the Government of Iraq or if there is an agreement do you just go in and eliminate the threat?
LTG BLUM: Those are great questions, but you're really presenting them to the wrong guy. You really should ask General Petraeus that. That is his issue. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: But I couldn't get to him.
LTG BLUM: No, and I'm being serious. I'm not being difficult or trying to be. If I am, I'm sorry. What I do is I -- they tell me what kind of units and what kind of people. My job is to make sure they are trained, they're equipped and they get there own time and they know how to do their jobs, and then get them home and make them ready to go back to their families and work and then be available. So when their governor calls them to do something less difficult and less deadly and more appreciated by everybody -- saving -- it's kind of very righteous work. I don't mean it in a religious sense. But most of the time the Guard gets called out here domestically at home, it is for very, very uncontroversial, very easy-to-understand needed reasons where we're saving lives or we're trying to save property or we're trying to restore normal conditions to our citizens and people that happen to be on our land and in our country, either visiting as tourists or working here. So it's a very -- it's a mission that the moms and dads of our nation and our politicians on both parties totally agree on.
Now, what you're bringing up is really beyond what I have any control over and expertise on. I'm sorry.
QUESTION: Takehiko Kajita from Kyodo News newswire. There are only three State Partnership Programs (SPP) in the Asian Pacific region. Why is this? And do you have any specific plans to launch new partnership programs in Asia?
LTG BLUM: Yes, that's a great question and I'll tell you why that happened. When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1990, the SPP program did not exist -- 1992, '93, the program did not exist.
When 18 Eastern European nations that were former Soviet satellite states had a chance to determine their own independent paths and which way they would govern their nation and which way they'd take the future of their society, I think a visionary leader named General George Joulwan, who was the Supreme Allied Commander (SACEUR) at the time, said we should take Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and all of Poland and Hungary and Bulgaria, Romania, all of these countries that are going to have to make this choice of their selection for their own future, and we ought to try to partner them up with states in the United States. Because he had seen the National Guard work in Europe and was very impressed with the civilian skills they brought plus the military skills and thought that would be very useful in new and developing countries that were trying to figure out their way ahead.
We did that with 18 different countries. We have maintained a relationship with all 18 of them. We have let go of none of those partnerships. Again, I told you it was like a marriage; unless the two partners want to dissolve the marriage, it stays together and it can be as intense or less intense as the two want it to be. They both have the hands on the control. It is a true partnership. We saw the success of this after about 10 years and expanded it into other regions of the world, notably South America, where there are over 20 partnerships. And we were slower, frankly, to get into the Pacific region, but we are now -- the Pacific region is a very significant region for the world and we thought that we would make this partnership available for that region of the world as well.
So we now have partnerships in that region with Indonesia and with Thailand and with Mongolia and -- Philippines and probably more to come. I expect there will be growth in that area or -- as these partnerships develop. Each one of those is vastly different, as you know. Each one of those cultures is vastly different. Mongolia, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia are very, very different and they each have their own partner. Alaska is partnered with Mongolia; Washington State is partnered with Thailand; and Philippines, Hawaii, and Guam partnered with the Philippines and Hawaii with Indonesia.
So -- and we expect that other West Coast of the United States, Pacific Rim -- it's not always thought of, but the western United States is Pacific Rim as well. I mean, the Pacific Ocean touches Alaska and Oregon and Washington and California as well. So I expect those states will be very interested in a partnership in the -- in Asia as this grows and develops.
Did I answer your question?
QUESTION: Yes.
LTG BLUM: Okay.
QUESTION: Bruno Bonamigo, with CBC TV from Canada. Yes, I'd like to know, in Canada, the debate has been going on for a number of years about the fact that we tried to expand the reserve aspect of our armed forces, and in light of what you've all presented and the amount of work and tasks that you have are already mentioned, I was just wondering, with all that's happened in the last several years? What would be the lessons you would have, like, for instance, for developing capacity all over the world? Do you think that you still have what it takes to conduct all operations internally and internationally? Because although you have 460,000 people, you have very, very huge goals to achieve. Do you still have all the people to accomplish all your missions?
LTG BLUM: Well, it's more than people. The people are not an issue. We have -- it seems the busier we get, the more people want to become part of this organization because we are used today -- we're probably more essential and more important to the defense of the United States here at home and abroad than at any time, perhaps except for the time before we were a nation when it really, truly was the citizen-soldier who made our nation possible. It was the farmers and the merchants who dropped their plows and their ledgers and picked up muskets to literally make the United States nation a possibility.
Since that time, we have not relied on the citizen-soldier quite so much as we have been in recent years. This has caused our force to be the best quality force we have had in 374 years of its existence. It's the most educated, it's a completely volunteer force, and it is the best quality force in every measurable indicator of any force that we've ever had. It is certainly the most experienced, having sent 300,000 over the last seven years to various operations around the world or here at home. So it's a very experienced force, the most experienced force we've ever had.
And therefore, from a human perspective, it's probably the most professional, capable experienced force, and I might add the youngest force, that we've ever had at the same time. So that piece of it is all magnificence and a success story, even though it could be counterintuitive. You could think the more that you were called upon, the more it was used, the harder it would be to find people or to keep people in your organization, but they seem to be very satisfied with the importance of what they do and the difference that they actually make here at home in their own communities and their states and as well as a contribution -- contribution to the security of global security.
We do face some challenges, however. It's not all a good news story. Part of the problem is we were under-equipped and under-resourced because we were not envisioned to be an operational force in the past. We have moved to be an operational force that the President uses every day and that governors use every day and we're still a very cost-effective force. It's the cheapest force for the capability it delivers because when we're not on active service, we are working in the civilian community earning our living either teaching or working in a factory or running a farm or doing computer work or doctors or lawyers or whatever. So they earn their own income, they raise their own families when they're not in service to a state or a nation, yet -- and they were under-equipped.
And so when we send our soldiers overseas, Iraq, Afghanistan, or anyplace that we go, they are superbly equipped. But doing that has caused us to leave our equipment at home. The supplies of our equipment at home are strained because of that and we didn't have 100 percent of what we needed to begin with. If we had a hundred percent of what we needed to begin with, it wouldn't be an issue. But it is an issue because while that equipment's overseas, it's not available back here in the States. So there is great interest on the part of the Army and the Navy, the Air Force and the Department of Defense and our elected officials, our governors, as well as our congressmen and our senators on the Hill here, to ensure that the Guard is adequately resourced so it can do both.
The people have demonstrated they can do both. Now we have to make sure we equip them so that they're able to do both equally well and in either place. I hope that gets to the issue. If it doesn't, please --
QUESTION: Bruno Bonamigo, with CBC TV from Canada. What you're saying is that your retention and the recruitment is going very well and it is -- will you say that it's increasing or is it the same or more?
LTG BLUM: The recruiting has never been better, and our retention has never been better, and yet we're being asked to do more than at any other time in our modern history. Those three things seem to be inconsistent, but I'm giving you the facts.
QUESTION: Ilin Stanev from the Bulgarian newspaper Capital. So you mean that Iraq doesn't play any role in recruitment?
LTG BLUM: Apparently, it doesn't.
QUESTION: Is there a particular success story or a particular state you would characterize, you know, saying that it's way, way above all the others, you know? Are there a number of states where we would see that happening?
LTG BLUM: They are all going very well. There are some, such as Indiana, that is doing exceedingly well and Texas is doing exceedingly well. And that gets to your point. Mississippi is doing a very, very good job. But the whole nation is; I don't have anybody that is dramatically lagging.
There are some areas of the country that do better than others. We -- our demographics have changed over the last 20 years and that's reflected in the numbers, somewhat. To your point, the Iraq piece, when the units that go to Iraq -- their recruiting lags while they're in Iraq because they're a community-based force made up of members of the community and they're largely out of the community for that year that they're in Iraq.
But when they come home, their numbers go up dramatically because our recruiting is largely word of mouth. Does that translate? Do you understand what I'm talking about? Personal referrals; you bring someone in that you want to be in your organization and you sponsor them to come in. So for you to do that, you would have to be very satisfied, number one, and willing to stay in the unit, right, which they're doing.
The second piece is they seem to be very satisfied and proud of what they did and why they went and why they interrupted their lives or why they interrupted their schooling or why they put their life at risk and they're -- perhaps their occupation at risk to go to Iraq or Afghanistan. They believe in what they're doing and after a year there, they believe in it enough that they stay with us and they stay with that organization knowing full well they may have to go again. And then they even do -- beyond that, they go out and get people to come in the unit to serve with them.
So I'd be careful about making judgments about how -- the commitment -- the commitment of these young men and women is extraordinary, extraordinary, and it probably does not logically line up with the impression you get through our media and other places as to what people think about the war. What people think about the war -- in a democratic society, everybody can have their own opinion about it. But the young men and women who have to put their lives on the line and their lives on hold to go do this for the National Guard, there's no reluctance to do it. They are -- they understand the importance of what they're doing and they're quite proud of their service when they come home. And that may not be well understood, particularly in the international community.
MODERATOR: Sir, if I could follow up on that, I would just observe the media may not know that most of the National Guard units that deploy to Iraq and elsewhere go and train out of Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and we just recently took a large group of FPC media there to observe that sort of training. This is available to all of you here. All you need to do is send me an e-mail. You can go and you can talk to soldiers who are about to go to Iraq.
LTG BLUM: Are they Washington-based, most of them?
MODERATOR: The soldiers were from a number of --
LTG BLUM: No, I mean the media --
MODERATOR: The media were Washington-New York based.
LTG BLUM: Camp Shelby is not the only place we do it. But we do it fairly close to here in Fort Dix, New Jersey. You can run up there and back in very short order. You could drive up there if you chose to. But if they want to go up there and see the National Guard training to get ready to go to either Kosovo or Bosnia or the Sinai or Afghanistan or Iraq or any of those places, we'll be happy to facilitate that visit. Mark, we could do that.
QUESTION: Ganka Gabrovska from the Bulgarian newspaper Dnevnik. General, I thank you again on the Balkan Peninsula. Do you work with American military bases in Bulgaria and did you help fight these fires in Greece recently -- wildfires that were big disaster in our neighbor country?
LTG BLUM: That is a perfect example of where I think the mutual cooperation of the militaries in the region is necessary. Every single country may not be able to have a military large enough or may not have an air force that is large enough or robust enough to be effective against -- helping civilians fight forest fires. And to me, that's a perfect example of mutual cooperation amongst neighboring states. I will tell you that when Greece had its fires, other NATO members sent equipment and personnel down there to help them. And if more were needed, we would have sent more.
I can tell you that if something happens in Bulgaria, Tennessee will know it immediately and I'll tell you why. This partnership has been going on since 1993, our Gen. Hargett, who is the Tennessee National Guard commander, called the Adjutant Gen., he has a very personal friend in Bulgaria. We -- (inaudible.)
QUESTION: He's the same guy (inaudible.)
LTGEN BLUM: That's right. That's right.
QUESTION: (Laughter.) He's in Tennessee.
LTGEN BLUM: Exactly. But the secret there is he has a long relationship with your Deputy Chief of Defense. He knows him since he was a young major in 1993. What's that, fourteen years ago, something like that, right? So he's known him for fourteen years. Believe me, if there's any assistance needed in Bulgaria, Tennessee will find a way. So that -- I mean, that's the power of this relationship in this program.
QUESTION: Charles Smith, Media 24, South Africa. Sorry. (Inaudible.) … the new U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), as you know, tried to get establish a headquarters recently and they ran into a little bit of political war in Southern Africa.
LTGEN BLUM: Imagine that.
QUESTION: But with the National Guard's State Partnership Programs (SPPs) -- there's no political problems, no political wars for you to plan through and get through to for this project of yours. How did you get that right --?
LTGEN BLUM: Well, let me take it away from your neighborhood for just a moment. You are aware of the relations between Venezuela and the United States.
QUESTION: (Laughter.)
LTGEN BLUM: The relationships could be much better between the nations right now. But -- and I guess I should be more clear. You couldn't have much more of a strained relationship between Venezuela and the United States right now. But at the same time, Florida and Venezuela still have their SPP partnership program. So even when relations are strained between the United States of America and the country of Venezuela, we still maintain that partnership and we still have effective things going on. And oh, by the way, does President Bush know that these are going on? Yes. Does President Chavez know they're going on? Yes. So even while the big leadership may be having problems, we can maintain a relationship between the state and that nation through the National Guard, which is quite useful because when relations are strained, that's when relationships really are important to maintain.
QUESTION: But it seems like with AFRICOM, it's an ideology that's a problem. But with the National Guard's SPP project, it's the help that's important, you know…
LTGEN BLUM: AsAFRICOM, gets established and determines its vision, its objectives, the SPP that already exists between New York and South Africa will continue in what we do together, New York and South Africa, will generally support what AFRICOM does. But we have some latitude in there. We have, like, a right and left limit that we can operate in and we can certainly conduct exchanges and training within those parameters. We will have the Adjutant General of New York visiting South Africa here and very soon, probably some time around February or March, and we continue our military police training with South Africa, even now.
There is great interest in South Africa on this, what I call consequence management or emergency response type of planning and mutual assistance training because every country, regardless of their politics, regardless of their leadership, is going to be faced with these kinds of natural disasters. Some of them are manmade accidents. I'm not talking about terrorism. I'm talking trains falling off the track, bridges falling down, chemicals being released unintentionally.
When those kinds of things happen or earthquakes happen, or tsunamis happen or so forth, it is imperative that the military really can effectively respond and help the civilian leadership at that time. And I think that it is probably easier, frankly, to get the military to agree with the other military than it is to get the politicians to agree with the other politicians. It's always -- it is always easier because we have a common ethos, we have common values and we know what's at stake. And what's at stake is far more than politics. You're talking about depending on one another's lives. And there's a common bond amongst members of the military that allows us to get a little further faster in that regard.
Yes, ma'am.
QUESTION: Cordula Meyer, Der Spiegel magazine in Germany. I have a question concerning domestic disaster relief. After two years after it happened, what did the National Guard take away from the Katrina experience?
LTGEN BLUM: That's a very, very good question. When Katrina happened two years ago, the National Guard -- I don't know if you know this -- sent 50,000 citizen-soldiers from every single state, came afar away as Guam, came from the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, right in where the hurricanes were coming through. No one was reluctant. No governor held back their forces. They sent them there. We had the largest, fastest, military deployment in support of a humanitarian assistance or a natural disaster in the history of the world. Over 50,000 National Guardsmen in six days were sent to Mississippi and to New Orleans.
In addition, the President ordered in about 20,000 additional active duty soldiers and sailors and Marines that came later. But your first people on the ground were the guard from the military, except for the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard did a magnificent job as well. They were magnificent. And then some naval reservists and some Marine Corps reservists also from the area. So it was a great team of teams that came down there. But it wasn't perfect. We could do -- have done better.
And so -- we looked at that very hard and said what could we do so that if this ever occurs, God forbid, again, how do we do it better? And one of the things we did was we went and purchased 72 standalone, that means it doesn't need electricity and it doesn't need an existing phone system or radio system or an electrical grid, standalone communications packages, so that we can fly them in and re-establish critical communications. That was one of the biggest problems we had in the early days of Katrina. No one could see what was going on and tell anybody what was going on because there were no -- there was no electricity or communication. So we invested very heavily in that communications capability. We did a lot of planning and prepositioning of equipment and supplies so that the next time we can get there even faster and better than we did last time.
We set up a joint command and control system that is deployable so that we can go in there. And if that happens again, if it ever reoccurs, Louisiana lost its command and control for the first two days because it was flooded out, we can go in and re-establish that and have that stood up within 24 hours. So we looked at that very hard. We were very hard on ourselves, to be honest and very self-critical and we worked on that for almost eight months and then went to work very quickly on purchasing the items of equipment that we needed and the specialized training that we needed so that if an event like that were to ever happen again, we could do it a lot better than we did last time.
I will also tell you that the FEMA has a similar process. But -- and they have -- but they had other unique and extenuating problems that they have to deal with. With the Guard, that was -- that's the essence of what our problems were. And I think we've overcome those problems. I think the next -- while our performance in Katrina was superb, there's no -- we saved 17,443 lives -- I mean, lives saved. We evacuated, flew out of there 70,000 people that were affected. I don't call those saved. They were just moved. I'm -- the people I'm talking about saved, I'm talking about they were on a rooftop or they were in a boat or hanging on a tree. And if they didn't get out of there, they were going to be dead.
So had we not been that effective in Louisiana and Mississippi, the death toll would have been much higher and the suffering would have -- the catastrophe would have been much worse. But even with all that, we don't rest on our successes, we build on them. And frankly, that's the idea of bringing together these international partners because every single country has experienced an expertise in its particular area that we don't have and we need to share. Some -- everybody knows how to do something a little better.
QUESTION: Ilin Stanev from the Bulgarian newspaper Capital. How do states choose their partners?
LTGEN BLUM: It really depends. It depends. Tennessee and Bulgaria, she hit it right, had about -- they were about the same weather and climate.
QUESTION: And we get a huge immigration in Tennessee and Bulgaria.
LTGEN BLUM: Yes, you do.
QUESTION: Economic benefits --
LTGEN BLUM: Did you hear that? So that's an unintended good consequence of it for Tennessee and for Bulgaria. The other part -- one of the reasons we pick as if there is an ethnic community in that state. For instance, when we picked Serbia, we did it because there's a large Serbian population in Ohio. And you know, why else we did it? Serbia had a long -- we knew Serbia was going to be a tricky relationship; it was going to be difficult, could be. And I did not want to put a state in there that had never had a partnership before. It was -- some of these partnerships are easier than others. Serbia may not be on the easy end, okay.
We got a lot of history to overcome on both sides of the ocean on Serbia, so we want to put somebody in there who has, well -- deep experience in the region and had a successful program going. So we took Ohio, big Serbian population, the size of the National Guard is suitable for the size of their military. And most importantly, they had a 14-year success record of working with Serbia's close neighbor, Hungary. Ohio and Serbia were partners for fourteen years.
So now, we thought it would be highly beneficial and positive and make good things happen faster if we had a three-way partnership where the neighbor to Serbia, Hungary, who came from exactly the same place Serbia did 15 short years ago, okay, now it went through PFE, state partnership program and now is part -- is an accepted member in the European community and is now a full partner in NATO.
We thought it would be very, very useful to have Ohio partner with Serbia because they were experienced, they were successful, they were committed to the region and they had a clear understanding of that region and they could leverage -- they could utilize the great relationship that Ohio had with Hungary, so that Hungary could assist Serbia and Ohio and the three of them could work together. So -- and it seems to be pretty good because Gen. Waite's (ph) over in your country today, setting up the next event that we have going. And you will celebrate in July one thousand events. Our one thousandth joint event between Tennessee and Bulgaria will happen this July and that'll be a big celebration. And Tennessee National Guard will bring their band to Bulgaria and they'll play concerts all around. They're not -- it's a good band. A good band.
QUESTION: Let's go there...
LGEN BLUM: But the point of it is Tennessee thinks it's a big issue and Bulgaria thinks it's a big issue. They both take -- they take great pride in ownership in this partnership.
QUESTION: Ilin Stanev from the Bulgarian newspaper Capital. Although they're training the National Guard, they're basically are doing both military and civilian jobs. And for me, it's difficult to imagine how a fighter pilot could also do some kind of civilian work.
LGEN BLUM: Well, I didn't say it was easy, but that's the way we do it. A typical fighter pilot may fly for the airlines or he may run a fertilizer factory or he may be a school teacher or he may be a dentist or he may be an engineer or she may be a teacher or she may be a lawyer in civilian life or work in the information technology arena. But when she comes or he comes to the National Guard base and they change into their flight suit, they are the most professional aviators and aircraft maintainers in the world. The National Guard is well renowned and respected, even in our United States Air Force for having the most experienced pilots and the best aircraft maintenance in the whole Air Force and that's not bragging. That's just clear fact.
Our pilots have more flying hours. Many of them come from the Air Force and then leave the Air Force after a number of years to go pursue a civilian career and then maintain their flying skills and their aviation specialty in the Air National Guard. Our maintainers, it's not uncommon. We keep our airplanes a little longer than the Air Force does. We tend to have -- we maintain them over a longer period of time and we keep our mechanics, our aircraft mechanics for a longer period of time. And they get extremely, extremely good because they work on the same airplanes for an extended period of time and they fly the same airplanes for an extend period of time.
So they are superb. Now, these same pilots that I just described are the same pilots that are dropping bombs on the targets once they get the release, however they get the release to do that. But these are the same people that do what you were describing and they're extremely -- they're extraordinarily good at it. Then they come back home and assimilate right back into society and are productive members of our -- that's why I think the National Guard is a national treasure because when you call up the National Guard to do anything, you call up America.
You're not just calling up a professional soldier or a sailor or an airman or a Marine. You are calling up a citizen soldier or airman and that citizen soldier airman brings with him or her the whole community with him. Everybody they go to work with, everybody they go to church with, everybody they go to school with, everybody in their neighborhood knows that they and their unit has been deployed and it's like America's hometown team. And that is very, very powerful. It's a very powerful message.
It's a very powerful message when we're in Iraq and the local people walk up and meet a National Guard soldier and find out that that young man or that young lady is a plumber or an electrician or a farmer and has their own individual occupation where they make more money and they have more responsibility than they even do in the military, yet they're willing to put all that on hold. Seventy percent of our force is married. They're willing to put their family on hold. They're willing to put their education on hold and their careers to go over there and do what they're doing overseas. So that tells you you cannot fool soldiers. You can't fool -- and you sure can't fool them long. If you can fool them, you're not going to fool them -- you may do it for a short period of time.
But here in Iraq, you either believe in what you're doing or you don't. And I'm not telling you everything we're doing in Iraq is right and I'm not telling you everything we're doing in Iraq is wrong. And the people that go over there for a year and do it, certainly believe that they did more good than harm when they come home and that's important. That is very important. And it's not well understood by a lot of people in my country, let alone your own. We don't do a good enough job of telling that story, I don't think.
MODERATOR: Are there any -- oh, go ahead.
QUESTION: Momcilo Pantelic from the Serbian newspaper Politika. Can you please comment on U.S.-Serbian relations?
LGEN BLUM: Current relations between Serbia and the United States, I think they are (inaudible), okay. I think they're excellent. They're outstanding because you have to remember that not too long ago, 1999, the National Guard was dropping bombs on Serbian forces in Kosovo. In fact, they're dropping bombs in Belgrade. To go from where we were then to where we are today is magnificent. And I think Serbia has the greatest chance today that it has had in decades of chartering a better future. I think they really have an opportunity here.
QUESTION: They speak Serbian.
LGEN BLUM: Some of them. But I think they have a magnificent opportunity to be accepted and to take their place in a community of nations, particularly in the European community, I really do. I am very optimistic and very encouraged by what I see in Serbia today.
MODERATOR: Well, if there are no further questions, that'll be it.
LGEN BLUM: Okay. Thank you so much. Thanks for the opportunity to talk with you.
