by Shaanth Nanguneri, Oregon Capital Chronicle
June 16, 2026
A federal military directive aiming to modernize the scale and power of American troops is set to reshape the work of the Oregon National Guard and could result in fewer aircraft for search and rescue efforts, shuttered National Guard facilities and the reassignment of hundreds of soldiers.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed the Army Transformation Initiative in April 2025 with goals such as increasing new technology for weapons, shuttering old equipment and downsizing the number of headquarter locations. But both Democratic and Republican federal lawmakers have questioned whether it has enough clear details or benchmarks, and whether it may end up hampering the United States Army’s capabilities, as the military news site Defense One reported in May.
Oregon legislators heard about the impacts of those policies during a Tuesday presentation from the Oregon National Guard. Many of the legislators present have experience serving in the military.
“We’re going to build the airplane while we fly it,” said Russell Gibson, the Oregon National Guard’s government and legislative affairs director. “So we’re going to go through and prototype things and try things and do all of that while we are still developing the army and continuing to train.”
The federal directive is expected to result in the loss of around 1,000 Oregon National Guard soldiers who would be reassigned by 2030. That includes the removal of positions which provide fuel, ammunition, vehicle maintenance and medical care during operations and those who help provide visibility for soldiers at the edge of combat zones.
Gibson described the changes as ushering in lighter equipment rather than heavy machinery and a switch to smaller, more agile formations of troops. But he also said there has been a loss of engineers across the army and projected that losses in aircraft would result in “impact to our emergency response and our search and rescue efforts.”
“It takes about five years to build a fully-qualified instructor pilot, and so losing aircraft means losing hours, means it’s harder,” Gibson told lawmakers. “We have to really make sure that we keep those people on glide path, so that we have the pilots that we need.”
No facility, armory closures
It does not appear that any facilities or weapons storage sites will fully close in response to the federal government’s orders, however. According to Gibson’s presentation, the army plans to make “minimum moves necessary” to consolidate. He said that Oregon would owe the federal government a refund if it abandoned a National Guard facility in the state before using it for 25 years and that “we obviously want to avoid that.” State governments have historically provided property for National Guard facilities while the federal government has paid for them.
Oregon National Guard facilities in St. Helens, Redmond, Baker City and Hood River are set to be vacated, with no current plans to fill them with other troops or units, according to Gibson. Although the Oregon National Guard has not ruled out refilling them with troops in the future, Gibson said, the facilities have piqued interest from local governments who could rent them out.
“That’s always a question. Are they available? Yes, yes, they are. They’re always available to rent. And at this point now we can talk about longer-term leasing of those facilities as well,” Gibson said, “But again, we’re not closing or selling at this point.”
The authority and role of the Oregon National Guard has been a topic of debate in Salem under the Trump administration since 2025, with lawmakers unsuccessfully attempting to pass legislation twice that they said would have made it harder for the president to wrest control of the guard, particularly during natural disasters or for immigration enforcement.
But some legal experts and Republicans have questioned whether such legislation would make a tangible difference in challenging the federal government’s authority, and none have made it to Gov. Tina Kotek’s desk. Although courts blocked the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard to Portland last year, mobilizing guard troops who spent weeks in limbo cost taxpayers at least $26 million, according to a Congressional Budget Office report requested by U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon.
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