Area National Guardsmen get alert for duty overseas

On a day when a number of its soldiers finished up a war games training mission in the Mojave Desert, the troops of the 1140th Engineer Battalion were notified that they may soon be deployed to participate in the real thing.

The U.S. Department of Defense on Thursday announced the next rotation of U.S. military forces to support Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, and that includes the 1140th, which has armories in Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Farmington, Fredericktown, Perryville, Sikeston, Portageville, Charleston and Caruthersville.

Staff Sgt. Joyce Kilmer, a spokeswoman for the Missouri National Guard, said no deployment dates have been issued yet and guardsmen have been alerted for the "possibility" of mobilization.

The announcement is intended to give service members the maximum notice so they, their families and employers can prepare. The new round of troops will replace those who are coming home.

"Anyone coming up on one year with their boots on the ground in another country can expect to be coming home soon," Kilmer said.

Newly activated military reservists and guardsmen can expect to be mobilized for up to 18 months and can be overseas for up to a year.

Word was reverberating through the area Thursday.

Wes Wade, a Jackson resident who is a sales manager at Horizon Screen Printing, got phone calls from his two sons Thursday -- both whom are soldiers in the 1140th. Wade said his sons believe that they will soon be upgraded from alert to full activation.

"They'll either do homeland security, maybe Iraq or Afghanistan," Wade said. "But we haven't gotten anywhere near an official report yet."

Wes Wade's 21-year-old son Mark Wade is a pre-med student at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has been allowed to do his weekend drills in Columbia, Mo., but is still attached to the 1140th, where he is trained to find land mines.

Luke Wade is a 19-year-old computer science student at Southeast Missouri State University. He is attached to the 1140th's unit in Perryville, where he is a heavy equipment operator.

From his family's standpoint, Wes Wade said it is unsettling.

"It raises a real concern on my part," he said. "Especially having both of my two older children going there at the same time. You can't help but fear the possibility of the worse."

Nonetheless, he said he's proud of his sons.

"I feel like it's our responsibilities as citizens of this country to provide that service," he said. "But I'm sure their mother will be quite upset, at least worried. It will be upsetting to her that they're both being activated. I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude."

Soldiers from the 1140th's B Company, which is based in Jackson and Perryville, left Oct. 26 for the Fort Irwin, Calif., National Training Center, where they participated in war games. Those 110 soldiers returned home Thursday.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137

bmiller@semissourian.com

243-6635