1,500 Vermont soldiers will go to Afghanistan
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By Peter Hirschfeld VERMONT PRESS BUREAU - Published: July 3, 2009
COLCHESTER – About 1,500 Vermont National Guard soldiers will begin departing for Afghanistan later this year in what will be the largest deployment of Green Mountain troops since World War II.
After notifying soldiers privately of the mobilization orders last Friday, Maj. Gen. Michael Dubie, head of the Vermont National Guard, went public Thursday with news of a deployment that will involve nearly half of the state's total Guard force.
Borrowing a famous line from Gov. Erastus Fairbanks who, in 1861, offered the bulk of Vermont's able-bodied male population to Lincoln's request for Civil War troops, Dubie said "Vermont will do its full duty" in Afghanistan.
"We are ready for the deployment," Dubie said in a prepared statement during an afternoon press conference at Camp Johnson. "We have a lot of work left to go, but with all the assistance we're getting around the state, I have confidence not only in mission success but also in taking care of the families back here at home."
Joined by troops from seven states, the Vermont soldiers will ship out as part of the Vermont-based 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. The Vermont brigade will serve as the commanding authority for the 10,000-member Task Force Phoenix, an assemblage of troops responsible for ensuring stability and security in Afghanistan.
The task force, which includes soldiers from 17 nations and will be headquartered in Kabul, is part of a dramatic surge in U.S. military personnel as foreign policy officials in Washington, D.C., shift their focus away from Iraq and toward Afghanistan.
"We will have a lot of help in executing this very complex mission," Dubie said.
Dubie said it's impossible to quantify the danger his men and women will face during their yearlong deployment. Though they will not be part of a "direct-combat mission," Dubie said the soldiers could face armed insurgent resistance in their efforts to train and mentor Afghan soldiers and police.
"All missions are not without risk, but the majority of our people should be in an advisory role," Dubie said. "But because our forces will be embedded in the Afghan military, we have to be prepared and trained for any eventuality."
That training has been under way since the Pentagon first put the Vermont National Guard on alert just more than one year ago. At Camp Ethan Allen in Jericho, soldiers have been undergoing training in mock Afghan villages designed to mimic the conditions and threats they'll encounter overseas.
Dubie said the Guard's growing role in operational defense missions has been met with a commensurate increase in training and equipment resources. Those resources, he said Thursday, have created a battle-ready Guard contingent well-prepared for the deployment.
"Make no mistake – we've got the finest men and women serving in the Guard today than we ever have had before," Dubie said. "They're going to make us proud."
The guardsmen and women hail from all corners of the state and represent a cross section of society.
"We have some people who just joined the National Guard, and we've got some people who are Vietnam veterans," Dubie said.
For slightly more than 50 percent of the Vermont soldiers, the upcoming Afghanistan mission will be at least their second deployment. Capt. Matthew Rodeck, a Barre guardsman, deployed to Kuwait in 2005 with 600 other Vermont National Guardsmen. The experience, he said, served as good preparation for the months he'll spend in Afghanistan next year.
"I kind of know what I'm in for, so that part is not an unknown for me," said the husband and father of three. "When you know, you can prepare for it mentally."
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Still, Rodeck said the Afghanistan mission could prove more fraught with danger than his time in Kuwait.
"This deployment for me is closer to being in harm's way," he said Wednesday. "Kuwait was more a deployment of endurance."
While some Vermont soldiers will remain based in Kabul, others will depart in small groups for remote Afghan villages. Embedded with members of the Afghan army and police force, Dubie said, the groups will live in small towns alongside their Afghan counterparts, training local personnel so they can run their own "independent, self-sustained counter-insurgency missions."
Dubie said the Guard has been preparing soldiers and their families via a series of "town meetings" convened across the state. The soldiers, he said, are eager to improve conditions for Afghan people who have suffered human-rights abuses for decades.
"The key to this mission is working with the Afghan people in order to bring stability and security to their villages so their children can have the same opportunities our children do," Dubie said. "… It's a mission of great inspiration to us and something our soldiers can really sink their teeth into."
Beginning late this year, the Vermont contingent will depart in four separate groups to a training base in Louisiana. The first group will arrive in-country in February; all 1,500 soldiers will be in Afghanistan by March. Dubie said he anticipates they will return before the end of 2010.
"It's going to be a tough year," Dubie said. "… We've got to take care of not only the people going over, but their families too. So it's going to be a tough year."
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