Gunslingers to return Saturday

BY DALE ELLIS

Managing Editor

The countdown to the return of the Searcy-based National Guard unit, the "Gunslingers," is now down to days, with the soldiers scheduled to return to Arkansas from Fort Carson, Colorado, on Saturday.

The troops have spent the past six months on active duty in the Sinai Region of Egypt as part of an international peacekeeping force that has kept watch on the border between Israel and Egypt the late 1970s. The Gunslingers are the first pure National Guard unit to be called up to serve in the MFO (Multinational Force and Observation).

The unit arrived in Fort Carson in three groups, with the last group arriving to begin out-processing in preparation to making the transition to civilian status.

The call-up of the troops was triggered by the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C. The Gunslingers were called in to replace an active duty army unit that had been scheduled for the mission but was diverted to other duty.

"It went super," said Major Franklin Powell of Searcy when asked about the success of the mission. "We set the standards for them."

Powell said the mission was remarkable - not only due to the fact that the 2-153 was composed of 100 percent National Guard troops, but that discipline problems were minimal and injuries were minor.

"We were told when we got there that we could expect at least one major accident due to the nature of the mission we had embarked on," Powell said. "That didn't happen. We had some injuries, of course, but they were minor."

Discipline problems were also primarily minor in nature, he said, with only a small percentage of soldiers running afoul of military regulations with mostly minor infractions.

"We had a good battalion to start with," Powell said, "super soldiers, commanders, we had a lot of good soldiers we took with us to start with."

Powell attributed that to the makeup of the National Guard unit, with men who had trained together for years, many of them related, and almost all of them dedicated to looking out for one another.

"We had a lot of brothers, fathers and sons, cousins, stuff like that, most of them older than the average regular army soldier." he said. "Now anytime you take 529 guys, you're going to have some issues, and we had some issues, but nothing like what has been experienced in the past. We set a lot of firsts over there, and one of those firsts was the fewest discipline problems."

Powell also said he was told by people who had been in the region for many years that the Gunslingers were the first unit to get out of the region without a major accident or injury.

"The biggest part was being away from the families the way they were," he said. "It wasn't as bad as being sent to watch Kabul Airport or something like that, as far as the danger went, but it wasn't like being stationed at some other parts of the world either."

The major threat to troops in the region is considered to be acts of terrorism rather than outright military action, he said.

"The guys faced danger, but not like some places we could have been," Powell noted. "We never felt like we were in a position where the soldiers were in a lot of danger or anything like that."

Major General Don Morrow, the adjutant general of the Arkansas National Guard, said the TF 2-153 had a successful mission by all accounts, and have been noticed by military organizations throughout the world.

He recently returned from a trip to the area to check on the troops.

"The soldiers' morale was very high," Morrow said, which he said contributed to the favorable impression they made. "The mission was one of observing and reporting, and apparently, there were several items reported, not many violations, but there was activity going on and our soldiers were reporting it back in."

Morrow said the area is in a very tense part of the world, but in the southern region of the Sinai, that tension was not particularly evident.

He echoed the sentiments of the commanders stationed with the Gunslingers that the mission was particularly successful and the maturity level of the soldiers contributed greatly to the mission.

"We're probably a little older than the average active duty soldier," he said. "It leads to a safer overall operational level than the youngsters in an active duty component in my experience."

Morrow said the MFO commander, General Meating from Canada, was impressed with the performance level of the Arkansas troops.

"I had a conversation with him while I was in country and he could not say enough good about our troops," he said. "He was very, very impressed both with the leadership in the unit and the soldiers."

All together in Fort Carson now, Major Powell said the soldiers are ready to finish out-processing and get headed home. The unit is scheduled to fly into Little Rock Saturday at 11:30 a.m., and be taken by police escort to War Memorial Stadium, where the soldiers will be reunited with their families.

National Guard officials suggested that families and friends who wish to attend the return arrive at War Memorial Stadium early, and said the gates will open at 10 a.m.

Governor Mike Huckabee is scheduled to speak briefly, after which time, family members will be allowed to come onto the field to find their loved ones. The unit will march into the stadium as a battalion, form up into formation briefly, and will then be released.

The following Tuesday, July 30, the approximately 190 Gunslingers from White County will march in a parade scheduled to begin at the corner of Spring and Center streets in Searcy at 10:30 a.m. The soldiers will march up Spring Street to Race and will end up at the College Church of Christ.

Lunch will be served following the parade for the soldiers and their families. That event is sponsored by Central Arkansas Hospital, Entergy, First Arkansas Valley Bank, First Community Bank, First Security Bank, Regions Bank, Simmons First Bank, and White County Medical Center