“The Great State Of Texas Always Will Send Their Soldiers”
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Lt Col. Paul Hernandez, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 133 Field Artillery of the Texas National Guard by a row of M102 howitzers in the guard’s armory at 9100 Gateway North Friday. The unit, which served a year in Iraq in 2004, was given an alert on possible future deployment. (Rudy Gutierrez / El Paso Times)
If he insisted on going by the rules, Sgt. Ivan Goss of El Paso would have a pretty good reason for not accompanying his Texas Army National Guard unit on its next deployment to Iraq.
But that’s not something that has even crossed his mind. When asked about it late last week, he said simply, “I volunteered.”
Goss — part of the 3rd Battalion, 133 Field Artillery, which operates out of the Hondo Pass Armory — deployed to Iraq with the unit in 2004. Now the 3-133 Field Artillery has received an alert that it is on a list of units that should be ready to go again. The citizen soldiers are supposed to have at least five years between deployments and can be deployed only 24 months.
In 2004, the unit was deployed for 18 months, which means Goss has only six months left for a deployment that is expected to last a year.
“It really never was a question,” said Lt. Col. Paul Hernandez, the battalion commander, noting that none of his veteran soldiers have objected. “The great state of Texas always will send their soldiers.”
The alert hasn’t changed routines very much, Hernandez said. At this point, it isn’t certain they will deploy, he said, or if they did, where they would end up.
For Spc. Josue Rivas, an El Pasoan who would deploy with the unit for the first time, it won’t seem real until his boots hit the ground.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Rivas said. “This is what we signed up for.”
Current activity is mostly administrative, Hernandez said. The unit is tracking people down, making sure they have current contact information, and helping soldiers and family members get their affairs in order, including finances and other arrangements required when a spouse is gone for a year or more.
About 300 field artillery soldiers would go along with about 100 soldiers in Gulf Company with the 9-49 Brigade Support Battalion, which provides logistical support for the artillery unit, Hernandez said. About 100 would stay behind as part of a rear detachment.
“I can’t take them all because they haven’t all completed their education or they still may be in high school,” Hernandez said. “I want them to finish their education first.”
Equipment won’t be problem either, he said.
“On our last deployment, the Army gave us all the equipment we needed,” Hernandez said.
Plans to upgrade the Vietnam-era howitzers that the unit is now training on were put on hold when the alert came through, Hernandez said. But the needed equipment will arrive if the unit does receive deployment orders. The National Guard soldiers also would have access to some of the Fort Bliss equipment at the Doña Ana Range, where it would go for pre-mobilization training.
Complicating matters somewhat is the Army’s transformation to self-contained, more mobile brigade combat teams. The 3-133 is converting from a heavy armored battalion to light infantry, which requires different equipment.
“If it doesn’t fit in your ruck (backpack), you need to leave it at home,” Hernandez said of the new mission.
And it isn’t clear what their mission would be — even if they knew where they would end up — Hernandez said.
In the last deployment, some of the field artillery soldiers from El Paso’s high desert ended up in northern Iraq piloting attack speedboats on the Tigris River.
“Our soldiers will be trained to meet any task that they want us to accomplish,” Hernandez said.
Those soldiers, most of whom have additional skills learned in their civilian jobs, also have packed up to help distant hurricane victims, and even their neighbors.
“We were working with (civilian officials) in Socorro, helping them out with sandbags, and over here at Canutillo with all the sheriffs and local police, helping them get stuff out of their houses” during the flooding in 2006, Hernandez said.
Despite all the demands on the citizen soldiers’ time, Hernandez said, employers have been supportive.
“I know it’s wearing them out,” he said of the employers, “but they have been steadfast.”
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