Listen Up Marines, We Belong at Sea

[BayonetBrant]

One may use AC prejudice to explain the over 90 days it took to certify the 48th. The fact remains the balloon went up in Sep 90 and four months later the 48th wasn’t ready. The fight was over FIVE months later.

It's very easy to not certify someone when you're moving the standard on them. I've personally worked with people who were there at the time, on all three sides: the OPFOR, Ops Gp, and the SCARNG (1-263 AR was sent with the 48th BDE). Every one of them will tell you that the 48th was hitting ARTEP standards within about 30-35 days on being on the ground at NTC. Then the standards started changing, some of it based on "feedback" from the Gulf, some of it quite frankly just silly. There's not a single AC unit that was pulled out of Ft Hood, Ft Stewart, or Germany that was required to train a battalion-sized deliberate breaching operation; the 48th was required to execute it perfectly before they were signed off on it. They were no less ready than any AC unit that was sent. They were given a different standard of "ready".

but it’s INSANITY to expect a Guard unit to perform to the same level as an AC unit after all of less than 30 days of training a year or even after hooking it up to the premob firehose of training for another 30 days.

Strip out the time that AC units set aside for block leave, the CSM's rock-painting detail, funeral detail, red cycle, etc, etc, and boil down the actual number of training days that AC units get. It's probably a lot closer to the 30 days that ARNG units get than you realize. Oh yeah, as soon as an ARNG unit gets within 1 year of their deployment, they start pulling double drill weekends/month, sending folks off to individual schools, extended ATs, etc, so that your last year before your actual mob date, you've probably pulled closer to 75 days of training, minimum. More if you're a key leader or a critical MOS. Again, compare to the AC guys and you'll see the number of training days they are actually training start to converge.

90 days isn’t arbitrary. OPLANS rely on synchronized deployment schedules and the enemy landing on our beaches isn’t the only threat we need to be prepared for unless you’re a Ron Paul isolationist.

90 days is arbitrary. The OPLANS you reference are sequenced, but it's not like they're sequenced to seasonal weather patterns, or tidal variations. They're synchronized to arbitrary numbers. Change the OPLAN synch to 60 days, and suddenly you need ARNG units mob'ed in 60 days. Change the synch to 120 days, and presto! you give ARNG units 120 days to get out the door.
The 90 days isn't the arbitrary number; the decisions in the deployment plans from which those "90s" were derived was what was arbitrary.