1137TH MILITARY POLICE RETURN TO MISSOURI HOMES

More than 120 members of the 1137th Military Police are back in Missouri.

The 121 members of the Missouri National Guard unit were welcomed home with big parades at Kennett in the Missouri Bootheel and at Jefferson Barracks in the metropolitan St. Louis area.

"Many of the members are on leave status now," said Ken McNevin, a spokesman for the Missouri National Guard. "They'll be adjusting for return to their civilian jobs."

Members of the unit are based in three locations -- Jefferson Barracks, Caruthersville and Kennett, but represent a wide area of Southeast Missouri, including Poplar Bluff, Sikeston, Portageville, Hayti, Malden, and other communities.

"We're glad they're back," said Thomas Arnold, a dispatcher at the Kennett Police Department.

One of the returnees is Roxie Bowman, a member of the Kennett police.

"We've been doubling up while she has been on active duty," said Arnold. "I am normally a part-time person here, but for the past eight months, I've been full-time and then some."

Bowman will return to her former post Aug. 28.

Randy Zimmerman and Don Mestemacher will also be returning to police jobs after Labor Day. Both are members of the Scott City Police Department.

Zimmerman, Mestemacher and Bowman were among the 124 members of the 1137th who were activated in late December of 1995.

The group was mobilized Dec. 27, flying from Blytheville, Ark. to Fort Benning, Ga.

From Georgia, the group flew to Germany Jan. 15 for training before replacing a military police force there which was being sent to Bosnia.

The 1137th worked in three German communities at Hanau, Darmstadt and Gibelstadt.

The 1137th was relieved in Germany Aug. 11 by the 514th from North Carolina.

Of the 124 members of the original group, 121 returned Aug. 11 to Ft. Benning, and were back in their home communities last weekend. Three of the original members of the group had returned to the U.S. earlier.

Forty-eight of the guardsmen were members of detachments from Kennett and Caruthersville and 21 were from a group at Jefferson Barracks. The remaining troops were from other Missouri areas.

Over the past five years, several members of the 1137th have been activated said McNevin.

Some served as replacements in Panama in December of 1989, many were activated prior to and during the Gulf War in 1990-91, and some were called during the 1993 Missouri flood to support civilian police in the St. Louis area.