Friday, May 28, 2010

Back to the front

116th Cavalry to provide security for Operation New Dawn in Iraq


By TONY EVANS
Express Staff Writer

Sgt. Heather Saunders in combat gear, training for action in Iraq. Photo by

This fall, 340 men and women "citizen soldiers" from all walks of life in southeast Idaho will deploy to Iraq as part of the 116th Calvary Brigade Combat Team. Many of these Army National Guard soldiers have served in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan three or four times.

At one point in 2005, half of the combat brigades in Iraq were Army National Guard, including 4,600 soldiers from the 116th, representing a percentage of commitment as part of the overall Army effort not seen since the first years of World War II.

In September, 2,300 members of the brigade from Idaho, Oregon and Montana will return to Iraq.

Though these are fully trained combat soldiers, their parallel civilian careers at home have prepared them to carry out the ultimate goal of U.S. forces as they prepare to withdraw from Iraq this fall during Operation New Dawn—supporting a country ravaged by war and on the verge of establishing a Western-style democracy.

"The 116th's last deployment required them to take part in a full spectrum of combat roles, including taking suspected insurgents into custody," said Idaho National Guard spokesman Col. Tim Marsano. "Those combat roles will be filled by Iraqi soldiers with the advent of this new chapter called Operation New Dawn."

"We will mostly be shaking hands and turning off the lights," said Sgt. Heather Saunders of the 116th, a jail administrator for the Blaine County Sheriff's Office.

Saunders spent 18 months in northeastern Iraq in 2004 and 2005 during Operation Iraqi Freedom, fulfilling administrative duties at a forward operating base in Kirkuk. She also visited a memorial in the town of Halabja near Kirkuk, where Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in 1988.

Saunders, who has several relatives in the armed forces, said she joined the National Guard 10 years ago, in part because she was bored. Two years later she was wearing fatigues and carrying a gun in an ethnically diverse city of Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs, where fires burned out of control on oil pipelines and suicide attacks terrorized the local population.

Saunders learned that the Kirkuk Citadel, an ancient castle now housing thousands of war refugees, is believed to house the tomb of the biblical prophet Daniel, a figure sacred to Muslims, Christians and Jews. Daniel is said to have miraculously survived being thrown into a lion's den by the king of Babylon.

Saunders comforted young American soldiers in the lion's den of Kirkuk by telling them they had a better chance of getting killed by a drunken motorist in Idaho than they did on duty in Iraq. She also baked bread for them, more than 1,000 loaves, with seven bread-making machines she acquired by blogging with military families back home. She said that as far as she knows, her bread-making machines and cooking supplies are still in Kirkuk.

Saunders also made friends with many locals, including a women-owned roofing company that needed help bidding on a repair contract for a U.S. military base.

"Iraqis are very good people in a very bad situation," she said. "They have been beaten down for 30 years. Most of them have not had the opportunity to participate in civil government."

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By the time the diversely trained members of the 116th Brigade left Iraq in 2005, they had helped restore electrical and sewer plants and deliver school supplies to children. Saunders said a National Guard soldier and farmer from Montana serving with the 116th, whose name she can't recall, helped form the first farmers' co-op in nearby Hawija, an area once ruled by Saddam's Baath Party.

The 116th, otherwise known as the Snake River Regiment, was formed in 1920 as part of the National Guard's expansion of horse cavalry after World War I. Many of the new cavalry regiments were assigned to Western states to enlist experienced horsemen.

Today, the 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team remains headquartered in Boise and maintains two battalions in Montana and Oregon. In May 2004, the 116th mobilized in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom III, the largest deployment in Idaho history.

Brig. Gen. Alan C. Gayhart commanded the 116th during Operation Iraqi Freedom, supporting rebuilding efforts in the provinces of Kirkuk and Al-Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq. He spoke at the Community Campus in Hailey last week at a meeting of Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve, a volunteer organization geared toward protecting the jobs of guardsmen and reservists while they are on active duty overseas.

Gayhart said in an interview that the lawyers, doctors, farmers and plumbers who make up the 116th, as well as other National Guard units in the Middle East, are well suited for the nation-building activities that often follow combat roles. He said the 116th helped bring hospital operations and infrastructure facilities up to standards in Iraq, and trained Iraqi policemen, lawyers and government officials to take over civilian duties from U.S. military personnel.

"The regular army can't do that," he said. "The U.S. State Department adopted the model used by the 116th."

Gayhart said he flew over hundreds of ruined villages in northern Iraq in 2004. Trees and fields in the region had been burned by Saddam's army many years before.

"The last time I was there I saw small green trees growing in the hills. They are planting them back again," he said with a smile.

Gayhart said his protégé, Col. Guy Thomas, will take over command of the 116th in September. The brigade will be spread across the country from north to south, providing security for military convoys as they withdraw from the country.

Gayhart said he is cautiously optimistic about the future of a government that he and the 116th helped to create.

"There has to be a mentor of some kind on the ground over there, either the United Nations or someone else. Otherwise, I'm afraid the various ethnic groups will divide and there will be a civil war."

Tony Evans: tevans@mtexpress.com




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