AREA GUARD TROOPS DEPLOYED IN PANAMA

About 50 members of the 135th and 1140th Engineer Battalion from Southeast Missouri boarded a C-130 transport plane Friday at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport bound for the Republic of Panama.

The six and a half hour trip will be the first of a three-leg flight that will take troops to Howard Air Force Base in Panama City, to the town of Changuinola in the extreme western section of the Latin American country and then to Camp Essayons where they will participate in Task Force Eureka.

Sgt. James Young with the 135th said at Howard Air Force Base, troops boarded a C-23 transport plane to travel to Changuinola, the largest airport near the base camp. From Changuinola, Chinook helicopters will take the troops to Camp Essayons (Essayons is French for "let us try.")

As part of the Task Force Eureka, the engineers will build roads to a Indian village situated near the Caribbean coast in western Panama called Ville Risco, Young said. Specifically, troops will be building about 3 miles of road and 42 separate drainage culverts.

Most of the soldiers will be in Panama for rotations that last a little more than two weeks.

And this isn't the first time Missouri Army National Guard troops have worked in Panama.

"Our engineer units have worked to improve conditions for people in rural Panama for over ten years," said Maj. Gen. Raymond Pendergrass, the Missouri adjutant general. "With excellent response from our Southeast Missouri soldiers, we were able to put together a small task force to take on this important humanitarian mission."

This mission is different, officials said, because of the short notice given to the troops.

"And what really makes the effort possible is the great support we're getting from employers and our families," said Maj. Dwight Lusk, the task force commander. "This was a short-notice mission, but we're there's a challenge to help people, our soldiers are always first in line, ready to be counted."