Posted on 01/18/2003 7:03:12 PM PST by lainie
Tank crew members (from left) Staff Sgt. Barron VanMeurs, Pfc. Michael Oakes and Pvt. Jason Malcom, all from the Nevada National Guard, survey enemy positions during maneuvers at Fort Irwin, Calif., Saturday. (PVT photo by Mark Waite)
From the Tactical Operations Center in a tent atop a hill, staff Sgt. John Watt, from Pahrump, keeps track of tank movements on a grid map. (PVT photo by Mark Waite) PV guardsman becomes 'enemy' as U.S. prepares for war with Iraq"
FORT IRWIN, Calif. - Staff Sgt. John Watt of Pahrump listened intently to the radio transmission. "Bravo Element straightline Starling plus two," the tank commander radioed back.
The jargon meant B company was two grid coordinates, or two kilometers, past a location called Starling Point. Watt marked the position with a plastic peg on a map.
The officer in charge of their mountain-top tent advised the tank commander to drop back and draw the enemy into their position, where they would be engaged in battle on the south slope.
It was the battle for hill 760, so named because of its elevation, 760 feet above the surrounding plain at Fort Irwin, a National Training Center for many of the troops now deployed in Afghanistan or preparing for a possible invasion of Iraq.
Watt is a member of the 1st Squadron 221st Cavalry of the Nevada National Guard, which has a unique job among the country's National Guard units. Watt and his fellow part-time soldiers from Nevada get to play the enemy in maneuvers with active duty troops.
On weekdays, Watt works as a switchman for Sprint in Las Vegas. But on this Friday after work, the six-year Pahrump resident piled onto a bus with other National Guardsmen and traveled from Las Vegas to Fort Irwin for a weekend as the enemy.
They arrived at the base, 40 miles northeast of Barstow, Calif., at about 12:30 a.m. Saturday. They assembled at their hilltop observation post at about 3 a.m., allowing them a couple hours sleep after they set up the Tactical Operations Center. Maneuvers began about 10 a.m. Saturday.
Always the bad guys
"The 221st Cavalry Army National Guard augments the 11th Armored Cavalry," Capt. Rob Pollom of Las Vegas explained. "They play the bad guys in all the war games."
"Regular army units will rotate into the NTC (National Training Center), they will train up for different environments," he said. "We're the only National Guard unit aligned with an opposing force unit. It's kind of an honor.
"Where we draw up these scenarios, they don't want to say we're the Russians today or the Red Chinese. We're the Krasnovians," Pollom said.
Sometimes, for reasons that are probably best left unexplained, they're even called "the Pahrumpians," he said.
"Our wartime mission is to come here and train the regular army," Pollom said.
Many people associate the National Guard with natural disasters or incidents of civil unrest like the riots in the 1960s. Guard spokeswoman April Conway said other units still handle those situations. The Nevada National Guard has two commanders, President Bush, the commander in chief, and Gov. Kenny Guinn.
"We do a lot of search and rescue, (and) wildfire abatement. When Reno flooded in '97, Gov. Guinn called us up," Conway said.
The Constitution doesn't say anything about an Army or Navy, but does say the U.S. will have a National Guard, she said. Some Guard units fly aircraft, perhaps training for air-cargo missions; others undergo cold weather training in Colorado depending on their mission, Conway said.
(Excerpt) Read more at zwire.com ...
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I suspect she's probably a civilian employee of the Guard, since no rank is given for her as it is for the Guardsmen. You are of course correct that the Constitution doesn't even mention a "National Guard", although it does lay out the rules by which state militia, of which the Guard is a part, can be taken into federal service, and specifies that Congress shall provide the discipline for the militia, meaning not the Manual for Courts Martial, although that oo, but rather a uniform "drill" manual, which in turn means common training, and perhaps equipment. Congress is also charged with providing for arming the militia.
The Constitution does however mention Armies (plural, we currently have two, a ground Army and and Air Army) and a Navy, giving Congress the power to raise Armies and fund a Navy.
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