LEWISTON – Maine’s top soldier, Maj. Gen. John W. “Bill” Libby, compares the predicament of the National Guard and Reserves to a football player unable to join the huddle.

Take the hits, but don’t call the plays.

That ought to change, said Libby, who is joining a growing number of decision-makers calling for a reorganization of the Pentagon with respect to part-time soldiers.

With an estimated 81,000 guard and reservists on active duty – many in Iraq and Afghanistan – the force cannot be ignored. They are fighting and dying.

America needs their help to wage war, Libby said.

In March, the Commission on the Guard and Reserves issued 23 recommendations for change. They included giving the reserve and guard their own budgets, separate from their active-duty counterparts.

The commission also recommended giving governors the ability to command active-duty troops in the event of an emergency.

Last week, both of those recommendations were shot down by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

His decisions were frustrating, Libby said Monday.

“We’ve become an operational reserve,” said the two-star general. Military specialties such as engineering and logistics have dwindled among the active-duty ranks while they have become more central to part-timers.

“Those abilities are almost exclusively embedded in the Guard and Reserves. They can’t go (to war) without us,” Libby said.

The first Persian Gulf war changed how the Guard and Reserves were used, calling people to active duty in unprecedented numbers.

“It was a huge shift in the paradigm,” said Libby. New recruits now expect to be called to duty three times in a 20-year career, he said, something that would have been unthinkable prior to 1990.

“Yet, in that time there’s been no shift in budgeting authority,” he said.

Nor is there a change among the strategic decision-makers.

The commission called for the Guard’s top soldier to receive four stars instead of three.

The group also called for a lead role for the Guard and reserves in the U.S. Northern Command, the Pentagon office created after 9/11 to oversee the military defense of the country.

The Pentagon opposed both.

And a recurring call for the addition of a Guard member or reservist to the Joint Chiefs of Staff was specifically dismissed by the commission.

Libby and Gov. John Baldacci signed on to a pact calling for the position among the chiefs. The pact was signed by every state’s adjutant general and governor.

The Pentagon seems wary of giving the reserves too much power.

Without an independent budget, money earmarked for the guard and reserves can be diverted to the active-duty military.

In his memorandum dated May 10, Secretary Gates offered no explanation for his opposition to the commission’s recommendations nor was there any commentary in a news release a week later.

Mnay of the complaints by Libby and others rest with a lack of give and take.

For example, the Pentagon’s refusal to give governors the ability to command active-duty troops in the event of an emergency seems one-sided, he said.

After all, it’s been done before.

At the Olympics in Salt Lake City and at the national party conventions in 2004, active-duty troops were placed under the adjutant generals in their respective states.

“Active-duty commanders are hesitant,” said Libby, who said he understands their reluctance.

However, his soldiers are often absorbed into other units. It happens every time one of his soldiers is called to active-duty service.

“We do it all the time,” he said. “We just wish it went both ways.”