Missouri Guard members are serving our nation with distinction in Kosovo

I recently returned from a trip to Kosovo to visit with Missourians who are part of the largest Missouri National Guard deployment since World War I.

My time in Kosovo was not only informative, it reaffirmed my long-held belief that Missouri's citizen-soldiers are ready to answer any call. I have seen them answer this call in my visits with the Missouri Guard in Iraq, Afghanistan and along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In addition to getting a first-hand look at our Guard operations in Kosovo, I traveled there to help draw attention to this mission that, despite its importance, has not received a lot of attention in the Missouri media.

Missourians should know that the citizens of the newly independent Kosovo are better off for the actions of our National Guard, and the United States benefits from having Kosovo as a close and loyal ally.

On the first morning of my visit, I had the opportunity to visit with the senior noncommissioned officers, including Command Sgt. Major Mike Lederle. During this discussion I asked Lederle what distinguishes this mission in Kosovo from other deployments.

He responded that National Guardsmen and women, as citizen-soldiers, have skills uniquely suited for performing this mission. This insight was also echoed by the commanding officer of Kosovo Forces (East), Brig. Gen. Larry Kay.

The Kosovo mission is unique. Soldiers are responsible for ensuring a safe and secure environment. But in the process of providing that environment, they are intimately involved, first-hand participants in a blossoming democracy. Through meetings with local governments and daily patrols through the streets of Kosovo cities, members of the Missouri National Guard are not running the government, but are ensuring that the environment exists wherein local officials are able to make governing decisions in peace.

General Kay and the forces he leads are ambassadors of democracy in a country where religious and ethnic differences were the source of widespread death and destruction just a decade ago. Missouri soldiers are revered by the people of Kosovo regardless of their ethnic background.

This positive relationship with U.S. forces is in large part because General Kay and members of the Missouri National Guard are successfully employing an innovative approach to relations with citizens and local officials in the form of liaison monitoring teams (LMTs). These LMTs represent an innovative tactical approach, that quite literally has the Missouri National Guard on the cutting edge of the U.S. Army, so much so that the U.S. Army Center for Lessons Learned is studying them for implementation in other active theaters.

LMTs are composed of two to three personnel, with attached linguists, who are out in villages and cities on a daily basis interacting with the general population. These are not special forces personnel, but rather our friends and neighbors, often young men and women 25 years old or less, who are making important, substantive, peace-building, and peace-sustaining decisions on a daily basis.

LMTs were created as a result of a lack of awareness of potential social, political and economic flash points and unrest within the general population. In March 2004, this unrest surprisingly erupted in violence after five years of relative calm. LMTs interact with citizens and officials in Kosovo to provide early warning of critical situations and new risk areas, to develop clear understanding of social, economic and political situations, to gain familiarity with key leaders and daily activities within the municipalities, to develop and maintain a thorough understanding of the major players on a local level and report any conditions that might affect operations and to establish relationships with local leaders.

Our men and women in uniform deserve our respect and admiration, and I am proud that members of the military are held in high esteem by Missourians.

As commander in chief of the Missouri National Guard, and having seen first-hand the work that members, under General Kay's leadership, are doing in Kosovo, I feel both obliged and privileged to make you aware of their superior work. Please continue to keep these brave warriors in your thoughts and prayers, and join me in looking forward to their safe, successful and rapid return home.

Matt Blunt is the governor of Missouri.