"A lot of them don't feel appreciated for the time and effort, hours and years they've put into it. They trained for a specific mission that many feel was dictated by statute, and now that mission is being changed, and as a result it's dwindled from 350 to 400 people a few years ago down to about a hundred or so now. ... These are folks that just wanted to help out."
Alaska Army National Guard Brig. Gen. Thomas Katkus, commissioner of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and to whom the ASDF reports, says there is no order for the group to stand down but that, in the post-9/11 era, new skills are called for, such as chemical, explosives and high-tech training.
"What I'm trying to do is fit the capabilities and great attitude and the ready and reliable resource of the Alaska State Defense Force into this new paradigm of a changed response force," Katkus says.
Flannery says the ASDF, which is intended to bolster local law enforcement in the case of emergency, has worked at the scene of events including the Miller's Reach forest fire in 1996, the Willow flood in 2006 and the Hooper Bay fire in 2006.
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