Iowa National Guard's Adjutant General Honors Fallen, Details Deployments and Modernization Priorities

Major General Stephen Osborne, Adjutant General of the Iowa National Guard, delivered the annual Condition of the Guard to a joint convention of the Iowa Legislature, honoring two Iowa soldiers killed in action and outlining deployments, readiness statistics and modernization priorities. "On behalf of the 9,000 professional men and women who serve in the Iowa National Guard, I want to express our deepest appreciation for your continued support and partnership," Osborne said.

Osborne began by asking the chamber to pause in remembrance of Staff Sergeant Nate Howard of Marshalltown and Staff Sergeant Edgar Torres Tovar of Des Moines, who were killed while serving overseas. He invited Deputy State Chaplain Lt. Col. Jeremy Taylor to lead a prayer for the fallen and for the roughly 1,800 Iowa Guardsmen he said were deployed at the time.

The Adjutant General framed the National Guard as an operational force that serves both at home and overseas. "The National Guard is not a backup, not an auxiliary," Osborne said. He told lawmakers the Guard provides a substantial share of the Army's and Air Force's operational capability and that units from Iowa had conducted large-scale rotations and mobilizations in 2025, including a brigade that mobilized from the Joint Readiness Training Center directly into U.S. Central Command.

Osborne provided personnel and readiness figures: he said the Guard ended the fiscal year with roughly 9,000 assigned service members, reported 99.8 percent strength at fiscal year end, an 82 percent retention rate, and that the Guard was over 100 percent strength with 8,931 soldiers and airmen assigned as he spoke.

He highlighted international partnerships, notably a 15-year State Partnership Program with Kosovo. Osborne said the Guard conducted 26 bilateral exchanges in 2025 involving more than 500 personnel and described the recent enlistment of Andron Gashi, a Kosovo permanent resident, into the Iowa Air National Guard as an example of partnership leading to shared service.

Osborne recognized individual Guardsmen and community partners by name for exemplary service and employer support, including Chrissy Estabrooks, Master Sergeant Charles Uthe, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Anthony VanCannon, and Steve Hauschilt of Graham Construction. He also described ongoing and planned infrastructure work: he said the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act included a $220,000,000 authorization to recapitalize the runway at the 185th Air Refueling Wing in Sioux City, and noted the final appropriation step is still required to secure those funds. He announced a newly opened readiness center in West Des Moines and two federally funded $14,000,000 equipment maintenance facilities (one in Sioux City already under construction and one planned for Waterloo).

Looking ahead, Osborne set three priorities for 2026: recruiting and retention to sustain readiness, realistic and challenging training, and force modernization that emphasizes people, equipment, infrastructure and integration of technologies such as cyber and space capabilities.

Votes at a glance: - Motion to dispense with roll call and authorize the president to declare a quorum: passed by voice vote (mover identified in the transcript as the senator from Winneshiek; motion carried). - Appointment of a six-member committee (three senators, three representatives) to notify Major General Osborne: carried by voice vote; committee members announced in the chamber as listed in the record. - Motion to dissolve the joint convention: carried by voice vote (Representative Kaufman moved the dissolution). - Motion to recess the House until the afternoon committee block: carried (Representative Kaufman moved recess).

The address ended after roughly an hour of speeches, recognitions and announcements; the joint convention was later dissolved and the House recessed.

Source material: the Adjutant General's address to the joint convention and the subsequent procedural motions recorded in the legislative transcript.