2DREZQ

This is the Unit my brother-in-law serves in. We're all proud of "our boys"




141st paved way in keeping Iraqi roads safe

By Jeff Zent, The Forum

Published Sunday, February 06, 2005

The shoulder patches worn by members of North Dakota National Guard's 141st Engineer Combat Battalion are well-known to thousands of U.S. troops serving in Iraq.
Word spread quickly among U.S. troops that soldiers wearing light green patches with a bow and three brown arrows were paving the way in the dangerous Sunni Triangle.
The 141st's mission called for the unit's 475 members to clear dangerous roadways for other troops to follow. For nearly a year, the Valley City-based unit conducted daily patrols. The Guards covered about 250,000 miles, removing about 300 explosives along the way.
Four of the unit's soldiers were killed in the mission, called Task Force Trailblazer.
Ten U.S. service members from North Dakota or serving with the state's military units have died while on duty in Iraq.
"Having somebody over there is very stressful," said Crystal Pool, whose husband, Max Pool served as a humvee gunner in the 141st.
"You have to take it day by day," said Pool, 27, of Fargo. "Sometimes you just want to live in a little bubble of denial and not think about it."
Convoy teams took and returned enemy fire and faced the constant threat of triggering an explosive or being ambushed.
"They tried to make it a safe place for everybody else and in doing so they put themselves in harm's way all the time," said Brig. Gen. Jerald Engelman of the North Dakota National Guard.
Staff Sgt. Leon Brackey, 27, of Williston, commanded a platoon that made regular patrols in north central Iraq. "Every day, we always had someone on the road looking for bombs and ambush sites," he said.
Spc. Cody Wentz, also of Williston, was a member of Brackey's platoon when a roadside bomb exploded Nov. 4, killing him during a routine patrol near Balad.
"You just didn't know if you would be coming home or not," Brackey said after arriving Friday at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colo. "You think about that every day."
In May, the 141st destroyed a former Baath Party building north of Baghdad. Insurgents were using the four-story building as a sniper and ambush point to attack U.S. troops who regularly passed on a main highway.
The 141st used explosives to destroy the building and a 200 pound warhead found inside.
The soldiers destroyed other ambush sites and searched thousands of vehicles and people for explosives and weapons.
"At every briefing, I saw in those soldiers' eyes that they were listening because they knew every piece of intelligence could save their lives," said Sgt. First Class Rob Keller, a Guard spokesman who visited the 141st in December.
The 141st was among the first units assigned the trailblazer mission in Iraq.
"They literally wrote the procedural protocol on that mission," Guard spokesman Rob Keller said.
Early in the mission, members of the 141st learned that their canvas-sided humvees and other light-armored vehicles offered little protection from bombs and ambushes.
The unit put their mechanics to work, welding metal plates on patrol vehicles for more protection, Brackey said.
"We were adding metal everywhere we could," Brackey said. "You would have thought you were looking at something out of 'Mad Max.'"

(Italics added-I sent the book "gun Trucks" with him, I wonder if it made a difference? -Chuck)

As the trailblazer mission pressed on, the Army started providing the 141st with armored humvees and other equipment better suited for their task, said Brackey, a civil engineer tech with the state Department of Transportation.
"As the year went on it progressively got better," he said. "It became safer.
"The casualties could have been worse," he said.
The 141st also served a humanitarian mission, distributing shoes, school supplies and other goods to Iraqi children.
Col. Craig Lambrecht, a National Guard soldier and surgeon at Bismarck's Medcenter One Hospital, said his North Dakota Guard patch drew a lot of attention when he first arrived in Iraq last fall.
By then, the 141st had long been blazing a trail through north central Iraq.
Lambrecht, who's directing a military field hospital near Tikrit, said soldiers and contractors often sing the 141st's praises.
"So as preparation is made for the 141st to return home, I'd like to tell everyone there is a legend in Iraq and that legend is the 141st ...," Lambrecht wrote in a letter from base Speicher.
Guard officials said they haven't received word that any other North Dakota unit will be mobilized as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom II.
Engelman said the National Guard will continue playing a vital role in any U.S. military presence in Iraq.
"Clearly the National Guard will be a part of the effort in Iraq as we know it today," Engelman said.
"Until there's a clear exit strategy, the Guard will be there," he said. "How long that will be, I don't think anybody knows that."

__________________
USS North Dakota

Franco Lolan

I'll pray for him. Sounds like they're doing a good job.