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Bama Guard unit deploys to Iraq; another heading out later this week

Posted to Breaking News at The Birmingham News:

About 50 members of the an Alabama Army National Guard unit that specializes in explosive ordnance disposal have deployed to Iraq and a transportation unit with about 170 soldiers is slated to arrive there shortly.

The 111th Ordnance Group from Opelika arrived down range last week. While in Iraq, the 111th will head up Combined Joint Task Force Troy, which coordinates and oversees efforts to counter improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, throughout the country. Task Force Troy will oversee 600 to 800 U.S. troops involved in anti-IED operations, and several dozen of those troops are soldiers with one of the 111th’s subordinate units, the 441st Ordnance Battalion out of Huntsville.

Meanwhile, state Guard public affairs officer, Lt. Col. Cynthia Bachus, said the 2101st Transportation Company out of Demopolis, Aliceville and Butler is now in Kuwait and will be moving into Iraq soon. The upcoming tour will be the second one for about a third of the unit’s soldiers. The first was in 2004-05.

This morning, the commander of an Alabama Guard military police unit said in an e-mail Sunday’s national elections went smoothly in his unit’s southern sector of Iraq.

“The Iraqi Security Forces did a great job executing the security plan that they established for the province,” said Lt. Col. Charles
Buxton, commander of Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 203rd Military Police Battalion, now based in Basra Province.

Soldiers with the Athens-based 203rd have helped train Iraqi police and did pre-election assessments to improve security at 20 critical polling places throughout the province.

Through last December, according to the latest Pentagon figures, more than 4,700 Alabamians were deployed in and around Iraq and Afghanistan.

Alabama Army Guard unit to train Iraqi police

Courtesy of The Birmingham News:

One of the next Alabama Army National Guard units to mobilize for duty in Iraq will have a mission of training Iraqi police officers. More than 75 members of the Athens-based 203rd Military Police Battalion will have a send-off ceremony on June 19 and then do additional training at Fort Bliss, Texas, before an August deployment to Iraq.

The 203rd originally was assigned a mission of guarding prisoners in Iraq, a mission that would have required about 150 of its soldiers. But that mission was changed to police training in late April. Lt. Col. Charles Buxton, the unit commander, said the change means the battalion will be taking fewer soldiers to Iraq.

Hundreds of Alabama Guard soldiers are now in and around Iraq and Afghanistan and hundreds more are getting ready to go. Several more Guard units with missions in the war on terror are expected to leave for pre-deployment training this month.

A team of state Army Guard members recently returned from Afghanistan, where the team’s mission was training members of the Afghan National Army. Another team is finishing up its pre-deployment training at Fort Riley, Kansas.

Athens mourns loss of a hero

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Private Turner’s loved ones:

Army Pvt. Ricky Lee Turner of Athens was killed in Iraq Friday when an improvised explosive device blew up a military vehicle he was riding in. Turner joined the Army in 2007. He deployed to Iraq last month. A memorial service will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at Majestic Chapel in Athens. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Army band to visit Veteran’s Museum

Courtesy of The News Courier, the 151st Army Band will appear in concert Father’s Day, Sunday, at 2 pm at the Alabama Veterans Museum and Archives. This year’s concert is the second appearance of the band of “citizen soldiers” who are based in Union Springs. The group consists of concert, marching, jazz and show bands, as well as woodwind and brass quintets. The band was officially charted in 1968 as a unit of the Alabama Army National Guard.

For more information, call the museum at 771-7578.