SC National Guard leaders wrap up strategy session

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Pressures on its members, including long deployments and the prospect of budget cuts, were at the top of the agenda during a three-day South Carolina Army and Air National Guard strategy session in Greenville.

The conference wrapped up on Sunday with talk of the challenges facing the more than 11,000 soldiers and airmen in the guard.

Maj. Gen. Robert Livingston Jr. told the gathering the guard needs to do a better job of identifying pressures and other issues to help its members in a timely fashion.

Livingston says the guard has always operated in a top-down manner, with information going from commanders to officers to enlisted soldiers.

But in the future, he says, the resiliency of the guard depends on communication going the other way as well.