Sacrificing for their nation
Texas troops see families one last time before deployment to Mideast
AUSTIN — It’s her first deployment, but in leaving her husband, Justin, and Houston Heights home last weekend, Texas Army National Guard Capt. Allegra Taylor learned what 2.7 million Americans who’ve gone overseas since 9/11 came to understand.
Military service involves duty, honor and country, but the deployment blues as well.
“No hardships,” she said Sunday morning, “just I’m going to miss my husband quite a bit.”
Taylor and Spc. Alyssa LaFosse, 28, of San Antonio were among more than 700 Texas guard soldiers who had one last chance to see family and friends at a Round Rock school district football stadium. They’re head
ing for a nine-month rotation to the Middle East and, like soldiers over the years and decades, putting the best face on a time of personal sacrifice.
“I am looking forward to furthering my career and actually doing my job and learning new job skills along the way,” said LaFosse, a combat medic who lives near SeaWorld San Antonio. “Personally, I love my job, I love what I do — I do a medical position on the civilian side as well — so for me being able to reach other people in other countries is pretty great.”
Standing beside Army Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris, adjutant general of the Texas National Guard, Maj. Gen. Patrick Hamilton watched as the 36th Infantry Division put away its colors in what is called a “casing” ceremony. He’ll lead the division’s headquarters, which will oversee active-duty Army and National Guard units, along with members of the Army Reserve.
Soldiers with the headquarters will be scattered around the region, serving in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and two other counties he wouldn’t name. They also may support missions in Iraq.
The headquarters will provide training for partner nations based on a Central Command theater security plan. The Texans will serve as experts to forces interested in improving their skills in such areas as artillery, maneuver, and command and control.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about us not having to be there and them having the capacity to do the things that they need to do to protect and defend their countries on their own,” Hamilton said.
Wearing their utility uniforms, the Texans were treated to a flyover of helicopters from Camp Mabry and music from the 36th Infantry Division band. A Medal
of Honor recipient from the Second Battle of Fallujah, David Bellavia, gave a rousing pep talk, telling the soldiers they were “ready to fulfill the destiny of this country and uphold the finest traditions of an incredible division that has been there and done that.”
The division’s rich history starts with the Meuse-Argonne Offensive under Gen. John J. Pershing during World War I and fighting in North Africa, Italy, France, Germany and Austria in World War II. It’s sent troops to Kosovo, Bosnia, Kuwait, the Sinai Peninsula, the Horn of Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now back in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, the soldiers will miss Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and Memorial Day. And they’ll live with the anxiety of the coronavirus possibly striking a family member while they’re far from home.
“I cannot overstate how proud I am of these fine soldiers. The 36th Infantry Division consistently demonstrates their professionalism and skill, making them the choice to lead so many operations overseas,” Norris said.
“It’s that 1 percent,” said Hamil
ton, the son of a three-tour Vietnam War helicopter pilot who grew up in West University Place, near Houston. “When they raise their hand and swear that oath to support and defend the Constitution, they don’t stipulate when and where they’re going to do it, they just say, ‘We’re going to do it …’ Words can’t describe how incredible that is.”
Hamilton, who now lives in Round Rock, commands the latest headquarters assignment since a 2000 Bosnia peacekeeping mission. The soldiers in Task Force Spartan Shield, like those then, come from across the Lone Star State, with many living in San Antonio, Houston, Austin and Dallas.
The troops appeared to mirror those cited in a Rand Corp. study that found 2.77 million American troops had served on 5.4 million deployments from 2001-15. More than 8 in every 10 of those GIs were enlisted, with 10 percent of them female. The troops on average were under 30 years old.
They’re part of an organization that’s had a high operations tempo all year.
The Texas guard, the nation’s largest, with 21,729 soldiers and
airmen, has spent 2020 helping mitigate the pandemic, giving more than 590,000 COVID-19 tests across the state. It also has supported federal and state border security missions even as the 36th Infantry Division prepared for its nine-month deployment to the Middle East. And only a few weeks ago, the guard was on duty in Beaumont to support civilians in the wake of Hurricane Laura.
So far, the 36th has coped well with COVID-19, reporting two positive cases last week and five in the past two months. All have recovered, but there was concerning news even before Sunday’s ceremony began on a cloudy, humid morning at the Kelly Reeves Stadium in Austin.
Hamilton said his wife, Beverly Hamilton, was diagnosed Friday with COVID-19. They said their farewells at home, from a socially safe distance. At Sunday’s ceremony, he wore an N95 mask.
The 36th Infantry Division is just one Texas guard unit going overseas. Others will follow, including an AH-64D Apache helicopter unit from Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base in Houston and C-130 Hercules cargo planes and their crews out of Fort Worth.
The Texas guard came into its own even before 9/11. It’s supported Pentagon overseas operations since the 49th Armored Division led the Bosnian peacekeeping force. That was a breakthrough mission, marking the first time the National Guard led multinational troops, and launched an era in which guard troops stood as equals with their active-duty counterparts.
The pace picked up quickly after 9/11. As active-duty troops were spread thin in Iraq and Afghanistan, the guard became a major player. As one example, the Grand Prairie-based 2-149 General Support Aviation Battalion’s Alamo Dustoff medevac crews from San Antonio replaced a unit attached to the 101st Airborne Division in Balad from 2008-09. That year, roughly half the utility helicopters in Iraq belonged to guard units.
The result: Tens of thousands of Texans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2004, and they’ve had losses — 12 in all. Earlier this month, the guard marked the crash of Red River 44, a CH-47D Chinook that went down in Iraq on Sept. 17, 2008, claiming the lives of seven Texas and Oklahoma National Guard soldiers.
Hamilton was with the first headquarters rotation to Bosnia, and he noted every division in the National Guard has done that mission once or twice. Texans ran the headquarters in Kosovo in 2006 and in Iraq four years later, with major generals in charge in each case. But the Texas guard also led “division-minus” headquarters that were run by one-star generals on two other occasions, one of them a few years ago in Afghanistan.
“I look at my staff and the team that we’ve got going downrange, and I think all of my senior staff has been there once or twice before, and they know how to do this,” he said.
Many of the soldiers on this deployment got orders to serve in what Hamilton called an “involuntary mobilization.” A few put in hardship requests, and some were granted. He said that while some troops will do better financially in deploying, perhaps because they were out of work as a result of COVID-19, others will feel real economic pain.
“But I would tell you those are the ones, they haven’t actually put in any hardship request,” Hamilton said. “They know what it is, they signed up for this and they’re proud to serve, and so they’re ready to take their livelihood, put it aside for nine months and then come back and get back after it when they come home. That’s the nature of the National Guard, isn’t it?”