Active Guard Reserve

Active Guard Reserve (AGR), also known as "Active Guard and Reserve," refers to a United States Army and United States Air Force federal military program which places Army National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers and Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve airmen on federal active duty status under Title 10 U.S.C., Title 14 U.S.C., or full-time National Guard duty under Title 32 U.S.C. 502(f) for a period of 180 consecutive days or greater in order to provide full-time support to National Guard and Reserve organizations for the purpose of leading, organizing, administering, recruiting, instructing, or training the Reserve Components according to Subsection 101(d)(6). . Since 11 Sep 2001, substantial numbers of AGRs have also been placed on active duty for direct support of the Active Component (also known as the Regular Component) of the armed forces in order to fill critical shortfall requirements for which no qualified Active Component fill is available. Most often, these are general officers and field grade officers in the commissioned officer ranks and senior non-commissioned officers in the enlisted ranks, typically assigned to the Joint Staff, the Army Staff, the Air Staff, or the combatant commands.

Soldiers and Airmen in such status are commonly referred to as AGRs. Although they continue to be members of the Reserve Components, they are in a different federal status than traditional part-time Army Reserve Component or Air Reserve Component members (including full-time Army Reserve Technician and Air Reserve Technician Program members) called to active duty for training, special work, operational support to the Active Component, or mobilized for contingency operations.

Certain units with critical stateside missions, such as the National Guard Bureau, the 1st Air Force, the Eastern Air Defense Sector or the Western Air Defense Sector, have been converted from regular active duty personnel to "all AGR" in order to provide more consistent manning.