IndyStar.com October 19, 2007
Hoosier Guard unit will be split up
3,400 troops heading for Iraq will do so in 21 companies
By Robert King
The 3,400 Indiana National Guard troops destined to leave for Iraq early next year already have been carved into 21 companies by Army leaders, despite objections from Hoosier commanders that the decision could limit their flexibility in the war zone.
The troops of the 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team still are expected to move out as Indiana's largest single Guard deployment since World War II. But they will go with the knowledge that they already have been split into 21 security companies, with roughly 120 soldiers to a company. Their task, upon arrival in Iraq, is expected to include defending bases, protecting supply convoys and guarding detainees. Aside from the security companies, the Indiana contingent includes several hundred command and support staffers.
The head of the Indiana National Guard, Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger, said he told Army leaders he would have preferred that they give the team its mission and then leave it to brigade commander Col. Corey Carr to make troop assignments once the team arrives in Iraq.
"I'm not going to say it makes it harder. It gives the command and control of our leaders a little less adaptability," Umbarger said. "What the Army has said is that in the lessons learned in fighting the insurgency, this is the best way to deploy. So I am OK with that."
Guard commanders were notified about the decision several weeks ago, and the brigade's training regimen was altered to reflect the new company structure.
Easing Umbarger's concern is that the divisions will not break up the community-based troop companies that are centered on local armories: the citizen soldiers who train together on weekends and during summers.
Also, the brigade and battalion leaders who command the troops will be deployed with them, Umbarger said. There is a chance the new security companies could be put under the temporary command of other units, including full-time Army units, Marine units and other Guard commands. But those cases, Umbarger said, should be rare.
Such unfamiliar working arrangements have become commonplace in Iraq as units have been stretched by longer-than-planned deployments and the recent troop surge, said John Pike, director of the military information Web site Globalsecurity.org.
"Yes, it is a strain, but it is a strain they have all been under for five years now," Pike said. "Every unit over there has either somebody above them or somebody below them or somebody next to them they are unfamiliar with."
As before, support personnel such as cooks and mechanics will be asked to run highway checkpoints or man guard towers, requiring additional training.
The 76th Infantry Brigade is scheduled to begin three months of intense stateside training in December before moving on to Iraq. The unit is scheduled to return home in December 2008.
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