Air Reserve Component's Participation in the Total Force

The Air Reserve Component (i.e., Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard) has had, and continues to have, and is forecasted to have a significant role in major military operations (i.e., wars and major contingency operations) throughout the world. However, there's not a lot information published out there to validate this factual statement. Thus, this author/researcher is presenting this paper in an effort to help provide historical proof and more importantly, shed light on the fact that the Air Reserve Component (ARC) is participating at a level it may not be able to sustain for much longer. Moreover, this author also believes that, even with the current efforts to transform the ARC into a fully integrated facet with the active force (i.e., the Total Force Integration programming), participation levels are likely to continue to be high for our traditionally part time force. Therefore, this researcher will present some re-organizational suggestions that, while they're outside the contemporary/mainstream Air Force (AF) lines of thought, can possibly ease the strain on ARC forces, but also will correlate to a better equipped total force that can answer the call of both current and future operations.