Planning for war
Sunday, March 4, 2007 12:07 AM PST
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| Tami Hart | Argus Observer
National Guardsmen (from left) Sgt. Joseph Blackwell, Spc. Monty Bixby, Spc. Chad Getman and 1st Lt. Max Arvidson from Ontario’s Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry (Armor) trudge through the snow after the completion of a maneuver exercise Saturday.
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Pat Caldwell Argus Observer
Ontario
They seemed out of place.
Framed against a stark, bright white background of newly fallen snow, the camouflaged figures — moving slowly, crouched low with weapons pointed — offered up a scene more familiar to Iraq or Afghanistan than Ontario.
The line of figures — National Guardsmen of Ontario’s Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry (Armor) — stopped, then fanned out in the snow in a rough semi-circle at Ontario’s Beck Kiwanis Park. Then Lt. Max Arvidson, Ontario, called to the group of citizen-soldiers and one by one they trudged toward the center of the circle.
Slowly, the group reviewed the process they had just completed — crossing a hostile roadway — and then they turned and walked back toward the parking lot behind the Ontario Armory next to the senior citizen’s center to do it all over again.
The exercise seems straightforward but its simplicity is punctuated by the knowledge these citizen-soldiers could be practicing the maneuver for real in Iraq or Afghanistan in the near future.
Two years ago, citizen-soldiers of Alpha Company — consisting of citizen-soldiers from Ontario and Baker City — were learning how to train, and perhaps one day fight, with M1-A1 main battle tanks. Now they are taking on a new set of tasks designed and formulated for the new kind of mission the United States military is conducting in Iraq.
The tanks are no longer part of the future for the citizen-soldiers of Alpha Company and a possible deployment to Iraq is now more and more a possibility.
While there has been no official announcements about a deployment from Guard officials or the Defense Department, most of the citizen-soldiers of Alpha Company attending drill at the Ontario Armory this weekend said a mission to Iraq is a possibility they are learning to live with.
Most of the Guardsmen appeared to take the fact of a long deployment to Iraq in stride.
They expressed a quite determination to do their duty and fulfill an obligation they take seriously rather than a burning desire to deploy for a combat zone. For many, a deployment to Iraq is a journey they have been on before as active duty soldiers.
“It’s stuff I’ve done before,” Arvidson said.
Arvidson, a platoon leader and a full-time employee at Snake River Correctional Institution, served in the U.S. Army during the first Gulf War. Arvidson said he felt a sense of frustration the job of containing Saddam Hussein was not accomplished in 1991.
“If we world have done it right the first time we wouldn’t have to go back,” he said.
Sgt. DeWayne Mayer, New Plymouth, said he spent time on active duty with the U.S. Army in the 1980s and, like the rest of Alpha Company, Mayer is in the process of relearning the ins and out of infantry small unit tactics.
Mayer said if the 3rd Battalion, and Alpha Company, is ordered to Iraq he is ready.
“I want to go. And I think we are,” he said.
Mayer conceded, though, that a long deployment to Iraq would be difficult, both for himself and his wife.
“She does not like it, but knows this is what I want,” he said.
For Arvidson, a deployment to Iraq is framed as a job, one that should be accomplished as quickly as possible.
“I don’t want to go but I’m ready, and happy, to do my duty,” he said.
No warmongers
Back inside Ontario’s aged, decrepit armory, Alpha Company commander, Capt. Dominic Kotz, La Grande, said a mission in Iraq is a possibility his citizen-soldiers consider likely. He also said the attitude of most of his citizen-soldiers is one of determination to see a job through to its end.
“I don’t have any warmongers here,” he said.
What he does have, he said, is a core group of men and women from across Eastern Oregon and Western Idaho who view a deployment to Iraq through a lens of professionalism. They have a duty and an obligation, according to Kotz, and they take it very seriously.
“While I don’t think a large percentage would volunteer (to deploy to Iraq) because of jobs and family commitments, I’d be surprised if anyone would balk at it if called up,” he said. “Most, I think, would feel bad, staying here while their friends and fellow soldiers go and they stay home.”
Kotz said he is not surprised the National Guard is facing longer deployments than in the past.
“I was told when I became an officer that ‘the United States has never went more than 20 years without a war, so get that into your mind.’ If I said, ‘No I’m a father, a husband, I can’t go,’ well, the next person is a father, a husband, am I better than the next guy? Do I shirk my responsibility? I can’t do that,” Kotz said.
Kotz, a supervisor at Boise Cascade’s Plywood Mill in Elgin, said a deployment to Iraq is a scenario he is planning on.
“Going to Iraq will be something,” he said quietly.
Planning for the Future
On Sunday, Alpha Company was once again in the midst of a another round training. Citizen-soldiers practiced sighting their weapons on the armory drill floor — utilizing a new laser firing range system — or moved through yet another round of small unit infantry tactics in Beck Kiwanis Park.
While no one talked about Iraq or Afghanistan or a deployment, it was hard to avoid the symbols of a new urgency among the Guardsmen. Many wore flak jackets and carried the new, shortened version of the M-16.
Lt. Col. Dan McCabe, commander of the 3rd Battalion, drove down from La Grande for a briefing with Kotz Sunday. He summed up a new theme running through the unit.
“I don’t know if we will go anywhere anytime soon. But let’s face it; we are part of one of 15 enhanced National Guard Brigades. Many of those brigades, from North Carolina, Arkansas, Washington and Florida are already there (Iraq) or going over. The odds are we could be on the next list,” he said.
Then he paused, glanced over the drill floor where Guardsmen from Ontario and Baker City, men with jobs at SRCI or Schawns, or the local police department, worked through training.
“This is serious business now. And we need to be ready,” he said.
Pat Caldwell is the editor of the Argus Observer and a member of the Oregon Army National Guard. He can be reached at PatC@argusobserver.com
