Politics & Government

British Takes Lessons From Jefferson Barracks Guard Unit

A member of Parliament visited the military base April 6.

Jefferson Barracks troops are teaching the British about the Missouri National Guard and its service in natural disasters.

Rushanari Ali, a Labour Party Member of Parliament from London, visited the 70th Troop Command April 6.

Britain has no National Guard, and Ali took back knowledge about the Guard’s response to the Joplin tornado, the February ice storm and flooding.

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“For me, this has been really informative because our system is very different,” Ali said in a Guard release. “In the United Kingdom the police are the lead agency and we largely rely on our police to respond to a whole mix of national emergencies. Rarely would we activate our reserve Army for such things.”

Command Sgt. Maj. Jay Marsden, the Troop Command’s senior noncommissioned officer, said it was a privilege discussing how the Guard operates.

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“What is really interesting about what the National Guard does is the way they respond to domestic problems ranging from tornados to flooding to any other type of national emergency,” Ali said. “The support for your civilian population is amazing. There is a lot of interest within my party about how such things are done in the U.S. and how some of this information could be shared between the United Kingdom and the United States.”

This is the second trip British officials have made to the base. 


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