Lead Battalion
National Guard Bureau News
Release Date: 9/09/2003
By Master Sgt. Bob Haskell, National Guard Bureau
CAMP ARIFJAN, KUWAIT - "The Thugs," as they call themselves with a certain sense of pride, have learned about going to war in ways that no street gang could ever imagine.
They are 24 Army National Guard infantry soldiers from Indiana, and they joined the brotherhood of combat infantry veterans during a long, anxious night in late March while guarding a captured ammunition supply point in southern Iraq.
They also helped to write a new chapter in the history of the modern Army National Guard by moving into enemy territory and holding their ground after the first week of Operation Iraqi Freedom which began on March 19.
The Thugs are the mortar platoon for the 1st Battalion, 293rd Infantry, which demonstrated during this second war against the forces of Saddam Hussein that the Army Guard can handle itself in a combat situation; that it is primed for the fight.
"We have validated ourselves to the active Army. Seven years of hard work and training has paid off," said Lt. Col. Ivan Denton, the 1st Battalion commander, about what his 650 light infantry soldiers and other Army Guard infantry units have accomplished during the second Gulf War.
The battalion is part of Indiana's 76th Infantry Brigade, which became one of the Army Guard's 15 separate and enhanced brigades in the mid-1990s.
"We believed that the enhanced, separate brigades' stock would rise during this war, and we took that very seriously," Denton said.
Army Guard infantry soldiers did not get into Operation Desert Storm a dozen years ago, when a coalition force drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.
This time, seven different Army Guard infantry battalions had served in Iraq between late March and early September, because the Army needed all of the help it could get, said Col. Glenn Walker, chief of the Army National Guard Affairs Office in Kuwait. "If you were ground combat and they needed you, you got used," Walker explained.
All told, 29,000 Army Guard troops, belonging to 708 units, were operating in the Iraq-Kuwait theater by September, he said.
Many of the Guard's support units, including transportation and medical companies, were pressed into service during the first Gulf War and have been called up again.
This time, however, the infantry can take a bow.
And the 1st of the 293rd from Fort Wayne, Ind., has led the way because it has been there the longest of any Army infantry outfit, Walker said. As many as 640 of those soldiers spent more than four months in Iraq.
A total of 476 of these soldiers received the Army's Combat Infantryman Badge and another 31 got the Combat Medic Badge for participating in ground combat against an enemy force.
Furthermore, Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, on Sept. 7 pinned Bronze Stars on Denton, Maj. Ronald Westfall, Maj. Eric Bray, Capt. Eric Derue, Capt. Wesley Russell and Command Sgt. Maj. John Runge.
Ironically, no one thought that outfit would actually go into that country.
It was mobilized last October to provide rear area security for Patriot missiles and for shipping and airport facilities in Kuwait, where U.S.-led coalition ground forces were massing to invade the country to the north.
The mobilization order arrived three days after Denton had officially taken command of the battalion on Oct. 19.
"I thought 'Lord have mercy. Welcome to command,'" recalled the new boss, a former Army Ranger, who had seen combat in Panama in late 1989, when U.S. forces overthrew the government of Manuel Noriega.
The battalion went into overdrive. The first half flew into Kuwait on Jan. 3, heavily armed, because "we didn't know what we were stepping into," Denton said. All of his soldiers were there by Jan. 20. Two days later, the battalion's Humvees arrived by ship.
They were among the first military units to come from the United States. "We were very proud to be the first infantry battalion out the door," Denton said.
They began guarding docks at the Shuiaba Port on the Persian Gulf and pulling security at Kuwait International Airport against possible terrorist attacks and sabotage as equipment and troops began pouring into the country.
They also patrolled the perimeter at Camp Arifjan, south of Kuwait City, to protect soldiers and Marines who were organizing for the invasion.
Remaining in Kuwait, however, seemed to be the Hoosier soldiers' fate, and Denton told them it was highly unlikely they would go into Iraq.
Two days later, on March 26, he recalled, they began escorting elements of the 3rd Infantry Division into that country. It all happened that fast.
"We had a lot to do in a short amount of time," said 1st Lt. Andrew Weaver, who was told to get his 20-man scout platoon across the border and close to the Tallil Air Base near the Iraqi city of Al Nasiriyah in 24 hours. His team passed destroyed Iraqi artillery pieces and smoldering Iraqi tanks as they entered that country across a network of defensive ditches.
"I had to pinch myself, because in some ways it felt like I was in training back at Fort Polk, La.," recalled Weaver, who had transferred into the unit when he was told it would be sent to the Middle East. "But we were headed toward some of the heaviest fighting of the war. I knew this was the real thing."
So did "The Thugs" - nicknamed for the sound that a mortar round makes when shot from an 81mm tube.
It all hit home when those mortar men were ordered to secure a sprawling ammo supply point next to the Tallil Air Base, so terrorists could not use the bullets, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft missiles against the Americans. The rest of the battalion took up positions around the air base.
The two dozen "Thugs," armed with automatic weapons mounted on Humvees, on March 27 replaced a mechanized active Army unit that had been guarding the site with armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles. They had engaged enemy personnel, and they had reason to believe the Indiana soldiers would also be hit.
"None of us slept that night. We stayed at 100 percent alert," said Sgt. 1st Class Scott MacGregor, the mortar-platoon sergeant who positioned half of his men at the main entrance and the other half at an observation post a couple of miles away.
"It was kind of an eerie feeling," MacGregor explained. "We could hear the fighting in the city six or seven miles away. There was fighting all around us. We were out there by ourselves."
But MacGregor had trained his people well since becoming the mortar platoon sergeant in July 2001. He's a patrolman for the Muncie Police Department in Indiana. He had served in Somalia in 1993, when he was in the 10th Mountain Division. And he knew it was only a matter of time before a National Guard unit, perhaps his, would wind up in a place like this.
"That man had us doing mortar drills day in and day out for months," said Spc. Sean Middaugh. "He never let up, and it definitely paid off that night."
The enemy did not come that night. Still, MacGregor said "The Thugs" lived up to his expectations. They stayed on their toes. They looked out for one another. And, after being relieved the following day, they set up a firebase, so they could support the rest of battalion if they were needed.
The success of those first couple of days set the tone for the next four months. The Indiana soldiers continued to operate around Tallil and in the Al Nasiriyah area as the war progressed toward and then into Baghdad.
Their job was to keep that airbase secure so that A-10s fighters could fly their sorties; so that an 82nd Airborne brigade combat team could land its men and equipment in Saddam Hussein's backyard; and so that Army Rangers could train there and then fly off to rescue Pfc. Jessica Lynch.
Sadly, the battalion did lose one soldier during its deployment. Spec. Brian Clemens was killed in Kuwait on Feb. 6 when a Humvee in which he was patrolling the Camp Arifjan perimeter rolled over. He was 19.
The Indiana battalion returned to Kuwait in late July and began waiting for the orders that would send the men home and end their year-long mobilization.
This is how their commander defined what they accomplished:
In Kuwait, they secured the seaport, so that 120 ships could unload the beans and bullets for war in a secure environment. They guarded the airport where 180,000 troops landed safely.
In Iraq, the Hoosier soldiers took on the rear area security mission so that elements of the 3rd Infantry and 82nd Airborne divisions would not have to and could maintain their momentum toward the north.
There is no telling how the experience will affect the battalion in years to come.
But Lt. Col. Denton is certain about one thing. "If these soldiers had not gotten into Iraq, they would have been let down," he said. "They would have felt that they had not been used to their full capability. I'm glad they got their chance to prove themselves."
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