This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. The National Guard (NG) rightfully champions its designation as an operational force. In the last decade the Army NG through the Army Force Generation Model (ARFORGEN) has continually produced operational units that deployed all over the world in support of OIF/OEF. The achievement of being an operational force was enabled by the desire, commitment and personal sacrifice of NG Soldiers, the NG's visionary senior leadership, and vast supplemental appropriations providing the fiscal resources necessary to create deployable units. However, with the pending reduction of fiscal resources and the continual need to mobilize ready forces, the NG will lose its effectiveness, efficiency and most importantly its sustainability, unless the NG adapts to the demands of being an operational reserve in a financially austere environment. To adapt to this reality, the way the NG maintains operational readiness has to overcome diminishing resources, institutional thinking, and the requirements of being an operational reserve by: 1) a paradigm shift in thinking by State and NG leadership; 2) right-sizing the total number of NG Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs)/ units; 3) refining the measuring and tracking mechanisms of NG units and; 4) increasing the State's reliance on the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) process. By implementing these changes the NG can sustain its brigades and battalions as a cyclic operational reserve.