WASHINGTON — The adjutant general of Arizona, Maj. Gen. Michael T. McGuire, has been named chairman of the board of the National Guard Association of the United States. McGuire succeeds retired Maj. Gen. Donald Dunbar, who resigned last month.
McGuire is the Arizona National Guard’s senior officer. He concurrently serves as the director of the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs.
McGuire, the association’s elected vice chair, was next in the line of succession. McGuire was elected association vice-chair by delegates at the NGAUS General Conference in 2018. He will serve as the presiding officer at the 142nd General Conference & Exhibition in Boston, Aug. 28-31, where delegates will select a new chairman.
According to Wisconsin Public Radio, “Dunbar resigned at the request of Gov. Tony Evers in December, after a report from the National Guard Bureau found the Wisconsin National Guard had mishandled sexual assault complaints. The report found that the Wisconsin National Guard’s policy for conducting in-house investigations — instead of going to an outside agency, like local police — violated federal rules.”
“Our association is in great hands,” said retired Brig. Gen. J. Roy Robinson, the NGAUS president, who runs the association’s daily operations in the nation’s capital. “General McGuire is an outstanding leader with great passion for NGAUS and the institution and people we serve.”
McGuire is responsible for managing the day-to-day activities of Arizona’s Army and Air National Guard, joint programs, and the Division of Emergency Management. He leads an 8,000-member department, of which 2,400 are full-time federal military and civilian personnel, and 600 are full-time state employees.
Before becoming adjutant general, he commanded the 162nd Fighting Wing at Tucson International Airport. The unit, one of the largest wings in the Air National Guard, is a schoolhouse for F-16 pilots from around the world.
McGuire has almost 33 years in uniform, the first 14 of which were in the active-component Air Force.
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McGuire was praised last month by constitutional experts for his letter to General Daniel Hokanson, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, questioning the role for his troops during inauguration week.
McGuire advised Hokanson that his staff has “has worked diligently to find appropriate legal authority to support the provision of National Guard members in direct support of current law enforcement efforts, in the District of Columbia. We have been unable to find such authority.”
The occupation of the nation’ Capitol since inauguration week has been a growing cause of concern for civil libertarians.
McGuire is a 1987 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. He is a pilot by training, with combat experience in both the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the MQ-1B Predator remotely piloted aircraft. He was appointed adjutant general in 2013 by then-Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.
“I’ve been a member of NGAUS since my earliest days in the Air National Guard.” McGuire said. “I continued to be awed by its accomplishments over the years, the force we have today, and I am humbled to now be its chairman.”
The Association is the voice of nearly 45,000 current and former National Guard officers. It was founded in 1878 as a congressional lobbying organization for National Guard issues.
“In the military we understand that hope is the most important thing that makes us successful. We are not hopeless, we are confident. Every Soldier and Airmen of the #AZNG is fully committed to supporting the most vulnerable,” Maj. Gen. Michael T. McGuire, #AZ’s Adjutant General. pic.twitter.com/T09OyZ9VrD
— ArizonaNationalGuard (@AZNationalGuard) November 18, 2020