ASSISTING COUNTRY GUARD'S PRIMARY DUTY

The primary duty of Cape Girardeau's Missouri National Guard Engineer Brigade, 35th Infantry Division is assisting its country. Period.

The unit has a time-honored tradition of fulfilling this duty, beginning with its inception -- when the predecessor to the brigade's headquarters company formed as an infantry headquarters company during World War I. Since the switch in designation in 1963 from infantrymen to engineers, the unit's focus has changed from firing bullets to building bridges and clearing minefields.

"We preserve bridges, or blow them up. ... It's one of the most important operations on the battlefield," said Lt. Col. Jerry Sanders. "If you hit a river and it stops you, you're dead."

Cape Girardeau's hometown guardsmen work in the armory behind the olive drab armored personnel carrier parked off western Independence. The brigade is currently at slightly over full strength, 60 men.

But with the national economy as healthy as it is, it's a good idea for Guard units to be slightly over full strength, said Sanders. Guard units can experience a 20 percent personnel loss in one year as people switch jobs or graduate from college.

The brigade's most recent training weekend, in early December, concentrated on administrative requirements for the troops -- records searches, medical checkups, and immunizations for malaria, yellow fever and Hepatitis B.

Folding cafeteria tables were set up in the armory, and lines of guardsmen in camouflage fatigues snaked across the cement floor, waiting on various administrative stations. Other troops cleared away the remains of a feast of mashed potatoes, stuffing, smoked turkey, cranberry Jell-O, and sweet tea.

"We had to cook two holiday meals. One in Sikeston, and one here. So it's been a quick weekend for me," reported food service specialist Freddy Taylor, of Sikeston, as he waited in line for immunizations.

"Anytime you're doing administrative stuff, it's not going to be high speed. It's going to be take your stuff, move to the next station, and wait," explained Sgt. Keith Standridge, of Fruitland. "We try to get this all out of the way in one weekend so we can train the rest of the year."

The predecessors of the brigade's headquarters company fought as infantry in France in WWI, but remained stateside in WWII, largely guarding beaches, fuel dumps, and railroads in California.

Following WWII, the brigade's predecessors saw duty providing emergency relief to their fellow Missourians. The unit assisted in providing security and restoring communications following a tornado disaster in Cape Girardeau in May 1949. Less than a year later, personnel from the company would again be mobilized when the Mississippi River flooded New Madrid County.

Following the redesignation to engineers, personnel from the brigade assisted in flood relief efforts when the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers overflowed their banks in 1973 and 1974. Then, in the record snowfall winters of 1978 and 1979, unit personnel were dispatched to northern and southeast Missouri to direct snow removal operations.

Since the 1980s, the brigade has participated in road-building relief in Panama, and road- and bridge-building hurricane relief in Honduras. The guardsmen have constructed roads for Native American populations in New Mexico, Arizona, and on Annette Island, Alaska. During the great Mississippi River flooding of 1993 and 1995, the guardsmen stacked sandbags from St. Genevieve, Mo., to Dutchtown, Mo.

Also in their home state, the personnel of the brigade have built bridges in Kansas City, and baseball fields, soccer fields, and culverts in southeast Missouri -- all the while, waiting for the next time the Mississippi River misbehaves.

"When the river rises, we can fill a lot of sandbags," said Sanders.

By recently issued orders, the brigade is scheduled to rotate into Bosnia in April 2003 to join the United Nations peacekeeping efforts there. The unit will construct roads and bridges and rebuild civilian homes.