Citizen-soldiers
Sunday, March 4, 2007 12:08 AM PST
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| Tami hart | Argus Observer
Spc. Valerie Dean, La Grande, prepares to qualify with her M-4 rifle at a firing range at Camp Rilea on the Oregon coast. Dean, attached to Ontario’s Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion 116th Cavalry (Armor) is just one of more than 300 Eastern Oregon Guardsmen that took part in a two-week training stint last month. |
Pat Caldwell Argus Observer
Warrington
With one glance at Ontario’s Army National Guard outfit and you can see Eastern Oregon and Western Idaho.
Individuals linked and organized under a single, red and white flag called a guidon.
Separate lives from small towns like Payette, Ontario, Baker City and Vale.
Officially and collectively they represent Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry, (Armor), Oregon Army National Guard.
Yet they represent a cross-section of Eastern Oregon and Western Idaho with varied backgrounds and diverse goals.
One citizen-soldier of Alpha Company is a plumber.
Another drives truck for Schwans.
One man is unemployed; still another works at a local water treatment plant.
Some are prison security personnel.
Some are college students.
Some are too young to drink a beer legally; others have been in and around the military all their lives.
They run the full gamut in terms of age; from 25 to their late 40’s or older.
Ordinary, average residents of the western Treasure Valley, men and women from next door who happen to be members of an Army National Guard unit alerted for possible mobilization in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Average, ordinary people suddenly caught up in exceptional circumstances, pushed out of the routine of one-weekend a month, two weeks a year of Guard training into a uncertain future of possible combat.
Usually the citizen-soldiers of Alpha Company can look forward to a two-week training stint in the high desert south of Boise. Three weeks ago, though, the members of Alpha Company journeyed to the Oregon coast and spent two weeks training at Camp Rilea, a modest, well-used Guard facility south of Astoria. Swapping the hot, arid climate of the desert for the damp, thick undergrowth of the coast was not the only difference this year for Alpha Company.
Alpha Company — consisting of citizen-soldiers from Baker City and the Ontario area — joined sister Guard units that fill out Eastern Oregon’s 3rd Battalion for two-weeks of what is known — in military jargon — as common task training at Camp Rilea. The training marks a deviation from the past when Alpha Company and the rest of the 3rd Battalion primarily trained on M1-A1 Abrams main battle tanks for a big unit, Cold War-era conflict. In Astoria the tanks were noticeably absent as was any thought of going back to the big, 60-ton vehicles anytime soon.
Instead the focus was on small-unit training in preparation for a deployment overseas, probably to Iraq. While there were no wide-sweeping proclamations about a possible tour of duty in Iraq from Alpha Company citizen-soldiers the specter of that embattled nation was never far away. Feelings about the possible deployment, like the makeup of the unit, run the gamut. Some citizen-soldiers have mixed views about the process. Some are looking forward to it. Others see the deployment as an adventure and a chance to do something out of the ordinary. Not one Guardsman expressed doubt about U.S. policy or the overall aim of the conflict in Iraq. Many expressed concerns about leaving wives and children for more than 18 months. Yet a single, unifying theme emerged from the citizen-soldiers of the local Guard unit — if they have to go, there is no other unit in the world they would want to go with more than Alpha Company.
“They’re like my children,”
1st Sgt. Les Sissel stands at the top of the non-commissioned officer ranks of Alpha Company. As the outfit’s top sergeant he serves a multi-faceted role of guidance counselor, supervisor, mother, teacher and trail boss. Sissel holds down a fulltime job at Snake River Correctional Facility as a plumber and said he has been in the military, in one form or another, off and on since 1972.
Last week Sissel helped Alpha Company negotiate through a seemingly endless series of firing ranges, as the Guardsmen “zeroed” and then qualified with M-16 and M-4 rifles.
While the 3rd Battalion, and by extension, Alpha Company, are still only in an alert status, Sissel said he figures a deployment order is coming sooner rather than later.
“I think we’re going. I don’t think what we are doing is wrong. I think it is a necessity,” Sissel said.
Still the Ontario resident said he has thought beyond the daily routine of training to the myriad of “what ifs” that could befall Alpha Company, including the loss of a soldier in combat. The thought is not one he is comfortable with, he said. Nor, he said, is he sure just exactly how he would handle it.
“These boys are like my own children to me. I just don’t know how I will take seeing one of my soldiers hurt. My worst fear is having a soldier hurt over there. Trying everything I can do to make sure they’re safe is what I’m after,” Sissel said.
While Sissel said his employer has been “300 percent supportive” he said he is not sure the community as a whole in the western Treasure Valley have come to terms with a possible deployment of local Guardsmen.
“The general public, I feel, does not fully grasp the fact we could be leaving and the impact it will have on the community,” he said.
Monty Bixby, Vale, a Spc. 4 in Alpha Company, expressed mixed feelings about a deployment overseas. Bixby said he and his wife became parents March 16 with the birth of a girl, Miakoda
“In a way it will be a new experience,” he said. “I’m nervous but it (a deployment) is kind of expected. I wonder how it will affect me after I come back,” Bixby said.
Ontario resident Lennie Ables said he already knows about long deployments.
Ables, who works in the wastewater treatment facility for Heinz Frozen Foods in Ontario, said he went on active duty just before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
He was assigned to South Korea for what was supposed to be a 45-day stint.
“911 happened and they kept me,” he said.
Ables eventually spent 18 months in South Korea before he was able to transfer back into the Guard.
Ables summed up his feeling about a deployment to Iraq in one short sentence.
“We got to do what we got to do,” he said.
A tight-knit group
Sgt. Eric Labonte, Baker City, joined Alpha Company in November 2000, after spending 12 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. Labonte, a workforce development supervisor for the Baker County Training Employment Consortium, said a deployment overseas is an opportunity.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he said. Labonte, married with a two-year-old daughter, said Alpha Company’s mix of residents from Eastern Oregon and Idaho with diverse backgrounds makes it unique.
“This is an excellent company. They’re good at watching each other’s backs. We are a very tight-knit group,” Labonte said.
Labonte said he is not worried regarding Alpha Company’s state of preparation before deploying to Iraq.
“People have a misconception of the Guard and it is that we are not as well trained as the active duty. The truth is, we will go someplace and be trained because we are proficient soldiers,” he said.
Lt. Col. Dan McCabe, commander of the 3rd Battalion, said Alpha Company is a good example of the Eastern Oregon Guard unit as a whole.
“They’re very dedicated individuals. They have a lot on their plate right now but our soldiers are performing very well,” he said.
Unlike many of his active duty counterparts, McCabe’s command stretches across an area of Oregon bigger than some states. Ontario, Alpha’s Company’s home, is at one end of the battalion unit roster, while The Dalles is at the other end.
In between 3rd Battalion Guard units are stationed in Pendleton, La Grande, Hermiston and Baker City.
“We do draw a large share of our total force structure from Eastern Oregon. But we have Guardsmen from Washington State and western and central Oregon and Idaho as well,” McCabe said. The battalion’s deep rural roots is a strength, McCabe said.
“This is a unit, I think anyway, with a lot of pride and professionalism that can be traced straight back to their home communities. Many of these men and women may appear to be ordinary people, but they’re not. They’re some of the very best this region has to offer. They bring a high level of competence to their jobs with the Guard,” he said.
Pat Caldwell is the editor of the Argus Observer. He can be contacted at PatC@argusobserver.com
