National Guard trains for changing mission

Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Idaho National Guard troops during training exercise on construction equipment.

The large plume of dust rising from the desert just north of Mountain Home is the result of a training exercise being held this week --and for the next two weeks -- at the Idaho National Guard armory here.

The Idaho Army National Guard is in the midst of a major reorganization, with a large number of units in armories around the state taking on new roles and new duties, and as a result, requiring new training.

Some of that training is taking part as part of the Annual Training (AT) exercises held each year at the Orchard Range complex west of Mountain Home. And some is taking place in Mountain Home, itself.

Beginning June 3, elements of the 126th Engineering Company, based at the armory in Grangeville, began "going to school" at the Mountain Home armory to learn their new job as construction heavy equipment operators who will build roads, airfields and other "horizontal" work.

The unit had previously been a combat engineering company (Bravo Company, 116th Combat Engineers), which had been deployed to Iraq two years ago.

The current reorganization, Capt. Mike McDonald said, has been quite a change since the unit's days in Iraq. "We used to blow things up. Now we build things," he said. "We've been reinvented."

But that's meant learning a whole new set of skills, and at the Mountain Home armory the troopers have been "going to school" to learn how to drive road graders, bulldozers, scrapers and scoop loaders.

"Those are skills that translate a lot better into civilian life, and will be a great asset (to the state) in the event of a natural disaster" McDonald said, but they also are vital to building the infrastructures necessary to sustain combat operations.

The unit came to Mountain Home in part to give his troopers a change of scenery. "It was getting more difficult to keep the guys happy, to do their jobs," he said. "We did a lot of warrior stuff around the armory, but we needed to put them out in the field."

Most of the extra heavy equipment needed to train his troops was available at the Gowen Field complex of the Idaho National Guard (although some civilian equipment also was leased). And the Mountain Home armory had the space to conduct the training, which technically is separate from the AT work conducted each summer at the Orchard Range.

Outside the fence surrounding the armory the troops practice grading ground, moving back and forth, clearing and leveling it, and building a huge hundred-yard-wide firebreak around the armory as they learn to operate the heavy equipment.

"We're learning how to run and service the equipment. Every soldier has to learn how to operate every piece of equipment" the unit would use if deployed overseas, or called up to deal with a state emergency, McDonald noted.

Powdery dust fills the air around the armory, sometimes rising several hundred feet into the clear blue skies here.

"We're conscious of that," McDonald said. "You can't keep enough water on it" to keep the dust down, so instructors and supervisors watch closely what way the wind is blowing. If it starts blowing toward town, they stop.

Staff Sgt. Jason Hunsinger offered his thanks to the Mountain Home armory's Armored Reconnaisance Squadron (Troop B, 2/16 Cavalry Squadron), for "letting us use their building and motor pool. They've been really good about it."

And McDonald offered his thanks to the community for welcoming them to town. "The city has been great," he said. The nearly 130 members of his company have enjoyed the hotels, restaurants and general lifestyle of Mountain Home's military community.

In the end, it's all about being ready when called upon, McDonald said. "The people of this state should be so proud of their Guard. We do an awesome job," he said.

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