Scranton Times Tribune December 8, 2002
Local Reservists, Guard Ready To Roll
BY CHRISTOPHER J. KELLY When Army Reserve Maj. Louise Guszick landed in Saudi Arabia on Jan. 17, 1991, the Persian Gulf War was just 12 hours old.
Her sons were 9 and 11.
Nearly 12 years later, Stephen Jr. and Michael are grown, Mrs. Guszick is a lieutenant colonel and the United States is on the brink of another war with Iraq. Saddam Hussein submitted his declaration on weapons of mass destruction Saturday. Now the United States will analyze Iraq's claim that it has no weapons of mass destruction to determine if that denial is credible and complies with U.N. terms.
If President Bush orders an attack on Iraq, Lt. Col. Guszick said she's ready to return to active duty.
"Any more, it's not if you go but when you go," said the 52-year-old nurse practitioner at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre.
Her husband, Stephen, is a staff sergeant with the Wilkes-Barre-based 1st Battalion, 109th Field Artillery, which sent more than 70 members to Germany in July to provide security at military bases there.
"If you're in the reserves today, you have to expect that you can be called up at any time," Lt. Col. Guszick said, pointing out about 50 percent of the U.S. military is Guard and Reserve.
Bush administration officials and experts have said the mobilization of reserves in another war with Iraq could equal the 265,000 Reservists and National Guard soldiers called up during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.
According to U.S. officials, some reservists would be assigned to combat duty, while others would guard U.S. military bases overseas and at home. Some would also be stationed outside factories, at power plants, transportation hubs and medical centers.
In what is likely to be only the first wave of call-ups, officials said the Pentagon is expected over the next few days to activate as many as 10,000 reservists, mainly military police units, for security duty at home and abroad.
About 58,000 National Guard and Reserve soldiers are on active duty for the war on terrorism, including 3,500 soldiers from Pennsylvania. The Scranton-based 55th Brigade Headquarters and its subordinate unit, the 1st Battalion of the 109th Mechanized Infantry, have more than 400 area soldiers on security and peacekeeping missions in Germany, Bosnia-Herzegovina and other European countries.
During the Gulf War, Lt. Col. Guszick, Lt. Col. Valerie Boytin and Col. Jonathan Sussman were members of the 300th Field Hospital, treating Iraqi prisoners of war at a 400-bed hospital in the desert near Al-Sarrar, about 150 miles west of Khobar.
The 300th was deactivated after the war. Lt. Col. Guszick and Lt. Col. Boytin, assistant director of primary care at the Veterans Medical Center, became members of the 348th General Field Hospital.
A doctor at the hospital, Col. Sussman, 63, is now assigned to the 103rd Armor Division in Lewisburg.
"No one has formally said that we'll be activated, but we've talked about it among ourselves," says Lt. Col. Boytin, 48, an Archbald native now living in Hunlock Creek.
"The general feeling is that we're eventually going to be sent somewhere."
If military officials know how many soldiers will be activated and where they will be sent, they're not saying. Pennsylvania National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Cleaver said the Guard does not speculate about future military call-ups.
He did say that the situation in Iraq isn't likely to affect the missions of the 55th and 109th, slated to come home in February and April, respectively.
During the Gulf War, 2,000 Pennsylvania National Guard soldiers were activated, Lt. Col. Cleaver said.
Lt. Col. Dan Stoneking, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, said the Pentagon does not comment on potential military operations. He said the numbers he's seen in the media should be viewed more as speculation than fact.
"The president hasn't given us a mission yet," he said. "Until the president gives us a mission, there is no magic number."
A U.S. invasion of Iraq is not a question of if, but when, said Patrick Garrett, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, a defense think tank based in Alexandria, Va. When the U.S. goes into Iraq, Mr. Garrett said, there will be call-ups, but he expects most to be homeland defense-related.
"If you're playing the Super Bowl, you want to play your first-stringers," he said. "You don't want to go straight to the reserves."
If the war dragged on "for a considerable amount of time," Mr. Garrett said the 28th Infantry of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard -- which includes the 55th and the 109th -- could see combat. The 28th is an associate unit of elite Army units like the 3rd Infantry, 10th Mountain Division, 101st Airborne and 82nd Airborne, all of which would be at the forefront of any invasion, he said.
When the 300th Field Hospital returned home, Lt. Col. Guszick, Lt. Col. Boytin and Col. Sussman had reason to wonder if they were leaving the Gulf for the last time. The unit's equipment stayed behind, stored in Kuwait in case they had to come back.
"If you can put the uniform on, you show up and do it," Col. Sussman said. "The president has better information than we do. If he thinks we need to go in there, then we have to trust his judgment.
"Whatever he decides, I'll support him 100 percent."
© Copyright 2002 Scranton Times Tribune
