Not since Vietnam has an Guard infantry unit been alerted for overseas duty
By Master Sergeant Bob Haskell National Guard BureauIn another time, Sergeant Richard Fischer would have been called a damned Yankee. He'd have been about as welcome in a Virginia military outfit as someone with advanced leprosy.
But Fischer, who hails from Pennsylvania, was not about to let a little thing like geography and the possibility of regional bias stand in the way of his next military adventure.
That's why the 34-year-old man from Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, has made himself right at home in the Army National Guard infantry company from Leesburg, Virginia, that expects to report for a winter of Joint Guard peacekeeping duty on the Sava River in Bosnia by late October.
Fact is, within two weeks of joining the company on July 11, the new chief of the communications section had practically adopted the 153 others in the outfit that has become the first reserve component infantry unit alerted for overseas duty since an Indiana Ranger company was called up for Vietnam in 1968.
"Everybody has a sense of calling. Not everybody has the chance to go with an infantry unit," said Fischer at Fort Benning, Georgia.
He has brought a bit of Yankee blue to Charlie Company of the 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry that is part of Virginias storied 29th Blue and Gray Infantry Division who led the D-Day assault on Normandy.
"This unit is tight. Theres a lot of people here who want to do something, and they're getting the opportunity to do it," said Fischer who is as much a salesman as he is a citizen-soldier. He intends to become a National Guard recruiter after he returns next year. He hopes to someday earn a masters degree and teach history.
Meanwhile, the solidly-built sergeant was busy at venerable Benning, the Army's Home of the Infantry, becoming one of the hooah boys with billiard-ball haircuts from Virginia.
He was hardly alone. Many other men, including four artillerymen from Missouri, brought their skills to the company that spent two weeks of annual training at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia and at Benning preparing for the mission.
Only about 70 of these people are Charlie pure, said First Sergeant Bennie Dancy, a Special Forces infantryman seasoned in Vietnam.
They are scheduled for up to 51 days of additional training and bonding at Fort Polk, Liousiana. The predeployment training begins in early September, a pivotal time for the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. NATO has started cracking down on indicted war criminals and President Clinton has indicated Americans may stay beyond next summer.
It was hard, however, to imagine what lay ahead as the men commanded by Captain Michael Peterson, a Virginia probation and parole officer, drew winter boots, Gortex parkas and long underwear at an oven of a supply depot on baking Fort Benning.
Sweat streamed down their faces as they crammed their new cold-weather gear into duffel bags that will be shipped with them to Eastern Europe where the winter can be much harsher than it is in Virginia.
They will be guarding the bridge that links Slavonski Brod in Croatia with northern Bosnia that is still grim with the scars and rubble of 3-1/2 years of conflict. That bridge, open only to military traffic, is still vital for hauling troops and supplies from Hungary into Bosnia.
"We have a high profile job over there," said Fischer, whose section is responsible for working and maintaining the company's two-way radios. "It's a very important area to guard. It has the possibility of being a dangerous mission."
He's faced those dangers before -- during the Persian Gulf War with the active Army's First Signal Battalion; when he spent five months at Log Base Echo in Saudi Arabia, near the Iraqi border. He shot information back and forth to other units off communications satellites.
Being willing to go into harm's way is one thing. Having to go is something else.
"We stayed right there," said Fischer. Thank God on that.
After a year as a Stinger missile team chief with a Pennsylvania Army Guard air defense artillery battalion, Fischer decided to leave his 3-year-old daughter and 11-year-old stepdaughter at home with his wife Beth and put his 12 years of active duty commo experience on the line again.
"Sure, there's a sense of excitement," he acknowledged. "Sometimes it's a little scary. The people who say they're not scared are only fooling themselves.
"This is a chance to use my commo skills to a much greater degree than they were being used elsewhere," he added. "This will be my last hurrah before I get into recruiting."
The Virginia infantrymen may have captured the lions share of attention, but they were not the only National Guardmembers being processed through Fort Benning's mobilization station for Joint Guard duty in Europe.
You could have called it National Guard season in Georgia as citizen-soldiers got set to assume a more significant share of the peacekeeping chores.
In all, 539 people from 11 different units -- including 245 from three Texas outfits -- were getting ready to deploy. The total headcount, including Army Reservists, was 613, said Major Dennis Depp, personnel officer for a Reserve garrison support unit from Tennessee.
The 130 members of the 111th Area Support Group from Austin, Texas, was the largest Guard unit besides the Virginia infantry company. That unit was headed for Taszar, Hungary.
The predeployment training included mine awareness, what to say to the media, and the proper way to search people and vehicles.
"These are the most Guard units we've had on the ground this summer," Depp said. "We're expecting a steady flow of Guard and Reserve people through October."
A surge of 500 Guard soldiers July 20 stretched his units 23 people pretty thin, Depp acknowledged.
"But," he added, "we'll manage."