The Associated Press State & Local Wire March 1, 2004
Tennessee's largest Guard combat force put on alert
By Duncan Mansfield
Tennessee's largest National Guard combat force is on alert for what could be its first full regimental deployment since the Korean War.
The 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, a 4,424-soldier force outfitted with enough tanks and armored vehicles to fill 585 rail cars, received the alert order just after midnight Monday.
The regiment is based in Knoxville, with squadron headquarters in Athens, Kingsport and Cookeville and 30 armories scattered across Middle and East Tennessee.
"The 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment has not received a deployment order at this time, just an alert order," commanding officer Lt. Col. Dennis Adams said. "Our mission is to continue to train and perform our duties as we normally would and be prepared for any mission that we are directed to perform."
That next mission could take the 278th to Iraq later this year or in early 2005 with three other major Guard units put on alert Monday in New York, Louisiana, and Idaho-Oregon, totaling about 18,000 guardsmen.
"The last time the 278th was activated was Korea," said Capt. Trey Brannon, a state guard spokesman. "That's as a regiment, (but) parts have been activated in every action that we have had."
Already, about a third of the 278th's 500-member attack helicopter squadron is deployed to Kosovo, Adams said.
The regiment claims its roots in the pre-Revolutionary War militia that defended East Tennessee settlers from the Creek and Cherokee Indians. It takes its motto "I volunteer, sir!" from the Tennessee militiamen who fought in the 1846 War with Mexico.
Formed as the 278th Armored Infantry Battalion after World War II from a unit that fought at Normandy, the 278th Regimental Combat Team was last activated fully on Sept. 1, 1950, for the Korean War. It was released from federal service in 1954.
"We are really trained heavily in reconnaissance," Adams said, but the 287th also has had an active civilian support mission.
In recent years, the regiment provided flood assistance in Memphis, helped recover an F-14 fighter jet that crashed in Nashville in 1996, provided security at the Ocoee whitewater events for the 1996 Olympics, fought fires and aided search and rescue efforts in the Smoky Mountains and helped secure airports after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The regiment received extensive training in desert combat in 2002 during maneuvers at the Army's National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif., in the Mohave Desert.
"We are trained," Adams said. "And we are committed to do whatever the president and the secretary of defense deem necessary."
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On the Net:
278th: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/278acr.htm
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