Gent Welsh was raised in the tiny town of Vale, Oregon. This summer he was named by Governor Inslee to replace the retiring Bret Daugherty as the state’s new adjutant general, commanding the Washington National Guard, Military Department and Emergency Management Division.
You might think of the National Guard in terms of its role in preparing for and responding to natural disasters, assisting state and national law enforcement during times of civil unrest, or providing cybersecurity help in protecting elections from foreign interference. And all of those roles are correct: in fact the Guard is currently helping the Navy with search and recovery efforts for two female Navy Growler pilots who crashed recently near White Pass.
But Gent Welsh also sees the Guard as a primary combat force in what he calls “a pretty scary world.” He thinks the U.S. has gotten complacent, both in terms of military readiness and homeland security, in recent years.
“Super scary now with Russia doing what they’re doing in Ukraine, with Iran and potentially some more conflict that happened in the Middle East with Iran and Israel. North Korea is certainly becoming more of a problem than they were just a month ago. So you’ve got all that and then you’ve got China, you’ve got China that wraps around all that, is probably our most dangerous adversary that we’ve had since the fall of the Soviet Union.”
Welsh talks about the Guard’s Strategic Partnership Program – which is currently doing a lot of work with Thailand and Malaysia – as a way to build readiness, plus send a message to China.
He is bullish on recruitment, saying the Guard met its recruitment goals last year for the first time in five years. He says Gen Z is “super dedicated to public service.”
Other topics covered in the interview: the use of artificial intelligence “without ethics” by America’s adversaries; prepping for quakes, tsunamis and wildfires; emergency management teams to help smaller counties with emergency response; young people whose lives are changes by the Washington Youth Academy; and more.
