The Miami Herald March 5, 2003
1,080 Florida reserve soldiers leaving for training in Georgia
By Ashlwy Fantz, Elaine de Valle and Phil Long; afantz@herald.com
In one of the biggest call-ups from Florida since the military buildup in the Persian Gulf began three months ago, 1,080 Army Reserve soldiers will be leaving for additional training next week.
The troops headed for Fort Stewart, Ga., include 465 from South Florida, many of them from an engineering battalion that specializes in moving the equipment and supplies that may be needed close behind front-line troops, one military analyst said.
The call-up suggests that the Pentagon may be building a ''stabilization force'' to go into an area after fighting stops, said Patrick Garrett, analyst for GlobalSecurity.org a Washington-based nonprofit that follows military issues.
Garrett said he was surprised by the size of this week's call-ups. ''War is a week and a half, two weeks away and they are still calling up thousands of people,'' he said. 'I think that this means this might be a follow-on force, part of the postwar stabilization force.''
Army Reserve Maj. Bill Nutter, spokesman for the Southeast region, said the people called Tuesday are from three specialties: military police, postal workers and combat construction engineers.
They bring the number of Florida reservists and National Guard people called to active duty to nearly 7,000.
In Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, a middle school Web design teacher, a city government employee, a computer specialist, a mechanic -- all members of the 841st Engineering Battalion -- pondered their fate.
Each of them has families, some with young children.
But together, on the grounds of Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, they become a team specializing in transporting troops and supplies and securing stations.
About 40 soldiers, wearing black berets and fatigues, toiled in an enormous garage tinkering with Humvees, five-ton trucks and tractor trailers. By March 15 they will be sent to Fort Stewart for biological and chemical warfare training.
Like other reservists of the 841st, Lt. Kevin Lasagna, 28, found it hard to tell his wife that he would have to leave their two boys, ages 4 and 9.
''This week I've been on usual annual training so I've gone home every night,'' he said. ''But, you know, what do you say to kids their age? You just have to believe that what you're doing will, in the long run, ensure that they have better lives.''
A teacher at Lake Worth Middle School, Lasagna has served 11 years as a reservist but has never seen combat. Only a few of the men in the unit have experienced war firsthand.
Sgt. Michael Carter, 44, did a tour in the Persian Gulf War. 'When I got the call, all my wife could say was, 'Not again. No, no, no,' '' he said. ''It was a hard thing for her to hear.''
An employee of Pompano Beach's water management department, Carter has two teenagers and a life he wasn't eager to leave.
''Before, I couldn't talk to my kids because they were too young, but now, you know, we discuss what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I think seeing September 11 helped them to better understand.''
The 841st is associated with the Fourth Infantry Division, which the United States wanted to place in Turkey. There, it could move into Iraq from the north in case of an attack. But so far, Turkey has not allowed that.
The engineers ''would be somewhere behind the dust cloud of the Fourth Infantry Division,'' Garrett said, following into an area after it has been secured by the infantry.
About 150 members of the 841st are based in Miami-Dade County, Master Sgt. Richard Prater said.
''We're called combat engineers. We put in land mines, take out land mines, put up roads, put up airfields,'' Prater said. ''We construct complex obstacles, which consist of concertina wire. We dig antitank ditches, so that they have cover.
In Miami, members of the 873rd Quartermasters Detachment cleaned and prepared four generator-operated Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Units, each able to turn river or salt water into drinkable water at the rate of 3,000 gallons an hour. That's about 240,000 gallons a day, enough to feed, bathe and quench the thirst of 12,000 to 30,000 troops.
The chances that the 20 or so local reserves will go overseas are great. ''Everybody has to have drinking water,'' said Sgt. 1st Class James West, the unit's commanding officer.
West, who has two children, has seen conflict before, in the Gulf War and in Somalia.
'My wife told me she doesn't want me to go but she's been with me a long time so she knows how it is. Ain't no family in their right mind going to say, 'Yeah, I want you to go.' This is a way of life for us and we've accepted what we have to do.''
Staff Sgt. Vendetta Montgomery will be leaving eight kids behind. But she spent seven months in the region during Operation Desert Storm so she knows what it takes.
''All I can tell you is I did it once before, I'll do it again. I have to do what I have to do,'' Montgomery said.
''Actually I thought it would be easier because my kids are older now. But my oldest daughter will be graduating from college and I've got a son graduating from high school and the twins will be graduating from junior high and I'm going to miss all that.''
Toron Knight, born on the Fourth of July 18 years ago, is the unit's youngest member. But the FIU freshman isn't a gung-ho GI Joe wannabe. He signed up for the Army a year ago as a way to pay for his college education and never expected to go to war.
''I really don't want to go because I have school and football,'' said Knight, who hoped to start as a running back next season. ''But I really don't have a choice 'cause I signed the papers. And this is my duty.''
Copyright © 2003, The Miami Herald
