ROAD IMPROVEMENTS KEY PART OF WORK (THIRD OF FOUR PARTS)

CAIMITO, Panama -- The Missouri National Guard has helped some Panamanian villages go from traveling on paths to 16-foot roads in recent weeks.

The work, part of a six-month project, is being performed by Task Force Mule, a temporary unit created to let members of the Guard meet their two-week active training requirements for the year. Select members of the Guard participate in the project for the entire six months.

"We have to do this training every year," said Col. Clyde Vaughn, the senior adviser on National Guard affairs to the U.S. Southern Command, "and it's illegal for us to do it in the States. We can't compete with private enterprise."

Vaughn said Panama is relatively close to the United States. Troops are benefited by mobilizing equipment and themselves to a foreign country at a cost close to that of an exercise at home.

The Mule commander, Lt. Col. Darrell Politte, agreed: "We are able to practice the deployment phase of an operation by coming here. And that's helpful in case -- God forbid -- of a war."

By the time Mule shuts down, 14 schools, three health clinics, about 40 miles of road and 10 water wells will have been created or modified. Between 4,500 and 5,000 people will have passed through the base camp's gate and experienced one of the work sites up to 20 miles away from the base camp, Camp Legendre.

The work sites are where the hard, manual labor takes place. Troops at some of the work sites must live at the sites because returning to base camp daily would be too time-consuming. A 20-mile trip to Santa Rosa, one of the work sites, can take up to two hours.

Engineers from the 1140th were laying brick, mixing concrete and moving earth last week along with troops from other guard or reserve units from the United States. Troops from at least 18 states will have a role in Task Force Mule before the camp folds up about June 10.

"It's nice to get away, and I like doing this," said Sgt. Jeffrey Buchheit from the Perryville unit of the 1140th.

Buchheit was working with seven other men last week building a school and latrines in Nuevo Parisseo. His regular job is working in the family store in Biehle, Buchheit Inc.

Specialists Scott Cauble and Jason Staniszewski, both of Cape Girardeau, were busy building a kitchen for a school at Arenas Blancas, a village about 15 miles from the base camp.

"It's nice to come down here, do this and be welcomed," Cauble said. "The people here have been great to us."

In addition to the roads, schools, clinics and water wells the National Guard has been building in Panama, they have been building relationships with the people who typically are born, live and die in the same village.