ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Air National Guard has delayed its plan to downgrade the status of about 80 members of its Alaska unit, a move that would have threatened national security and civilian rescues in the nation's most remote state.
The Alaska Air National Guard confirmed the delay in an email to The Associated Press on Friday.
Efforts by the state's politicians and Alaskans “have been instrumental in getting this delay which will allow everyone involved the time to conduct more thorough research and analysis,” wrote Alan Brown, an Alaska guard spokesperson.
The Air National Guard headquarters in Virginia did not respond to emails from the AP seeking comment.
The changes to balance top-earning positions among the other 53 state and territorial units will still be completed by Oct. 1.
Alaska was slated to convert 80 of the highly paid Active Guard and Reserve members — who are essentially the equivalent of full-time active-duty military — to dual status tech positions, a classification with lower wages, less appealing benefits and different duties.
Many say they will quit rather than accept the changes, which could include seeing their pay cut by more than 50%.
Local guard leaders argued Alaska needed the personnel in the higher classification to fulfill its requirements to conduct national security missions that other units don't have, such as monitoring for ballistic missile launches from nations such as Russia,…
