National Guard will be needed

Gen. Craig R. McKinley, the chief of the National Guard Bureau; Lt. Gen. Harry M. Wyatt III, the director of the Air National Guard, and Maj. Gen. Raymond W. Carpenter, the acting director of the Army National Guard, talk with reporters during the 2009 National Guard Family Program Volunteer Workshop in Dearborn, Mich., on July 27, 2009. In an era of persistent conflict, "our National Guard and our reserve component forces are going to have to stand alongside our active-duty counterparts and contribute, just like we've been doing for almost eight years," McKinley said. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill

Demand for Guard units shows no signs of slowing, according to a WNG press release.

-Steve

Hello, mother!

Alert reader Patti points out a Wisconsin soldier in the "Hi Mom" video making rounds on YouTube:

At least one Wisconsin guardsman appears, yet probably more (Chad Brown at 57 sec.) Enjoy a few light moments in a hazardous country.

See any Wisconsin soldiers you know?

Worst kept secret revealed

The above photo, provided by the U.S. military, was not taken at today's press conference with Wisconsin National Guard Col. Steven Bensend.

At today's press conference, Col. Steven Bensend did manage to commit some news, confirming that Wisconsin troops have been transporting detainees from Bucca, and then resuming their detainee ops mission at Taji.
The colonel also said that Wisconsin National Guard troops are well protected for their jouneys outside the wire, and he said officers including himself also venture out into the countryside.
Read the State Journal story.

It's hard to find the news conference clips on the DVIDS site. The clips get a little lost in all the photos of Angelina Jolie.
Here is perhaps a better link if you want to watch the press conference.

Click here for coverage of Angelina Jolie.

-Steve

B-Roll from Camp Cropper

Here's what the military provides to TV stations to run in the background while the reporter talks. These are kind of interesting. Especially the one from Camp Cropper, just because it shows the inside of a TIF -- something that is fully familiar to many Wisconsin soldiers -- but new to those of us back home.


This clip from Camp Cropper was released recently.

Here's one from the National Training Academy on Forward Operating Base Future, where Iraqi prison guards are being trained.

- Steve

Live ! From Baghdad

Col. Steven Bensend and Command Sgt. Maj. Ed Hanson were taking questions this morning in a live feed from the International Zone.
As one might expect, there were a few technical problems. WTMJ in Milwaukee pointed out that the camera was zoomed in on the Wisconsin flag that stood next to Bensend and Hansen.
Just about every word said in the first half-hour was followed by an echo, and several TV stations had trouble (at their end of the feed) getting a picture.

Bensend reported the morale of Wisconsin National Guard soldiers is very high and the Iraqi military is competent to take over operations over the next year.

"I think they compare to American forces and they should because we trained them," Bensend said.

Meanwhile, the military released several new videos featuring Wisconsin soldiers, including footage from Camp Cropper, Victory Base Complex and the International Zone.
Here is State Journal coverage, including links to the clips.

Undeterred | Volleyball in combat boots

From Austin Phillips

During our days of static operations we pass the time with tournaments and sports. Unfortunately, playing in uniform is a necessity while on duty. There are Ugandans who like to come and challenge us at volleyball every once in awhile, and they usually win.

I am not a volleyball expert by any means (what I retained from watching games while I was in high school is that the girls wear tight shorts), but let's just say the Ugandans play by their own rules. This does not deter us from the challenge, but it does make winning a difficult task.

- Austin

Eggs, water, aggression | The road to Phuket

This post from Austin Phillips has been delayed by logistical issues. It was timestamped 0216 30Jun09.

I was given a personal day today so I decided to use it and attempt another entry. Nothing new is happening; with the pullout we will wait, observe and maybe my blog will get interesting. I would not hold your breath.
So this week is going slower than usual and I am fairly certain it will never end. You think that your energy would be high if you're not doing anything, but it is not. Just having to be somewhere from a start time to an end time will drain you physically and mentally. I would much rather be gainfully employed and have a feeling of accomplishment instead of this scenario.

People find different ways to deal with our current situation; some people literally just sleep and work, sleep and work. I am trying to decide if by sleeping more this deployment will be over faster. One would think, but I would have to buy stock in Nyquil to make it work.
I find it best to find ways to utilize (waste) my time. Reading caught my attention in Egypt and I find it a fine utilizer of time, but I will choose working out over reading any day. Going to the gym is a great outlet for aggression, and there is plenty of aggression on deployments. Things that form aggression from my stand point:

1. Being around some of the same dullards day in and out.
2. Watching rules mutate and deform as they are passed down the chain of command.
3. Micromanaging
4. Incompetence

To be quite honest I could expand this list but you get the idea.
The aggression caused by some of the daily activities recycles as fuel for me to miss sleep for the gym, and can/will cause me to take on tasks that seem ridiculous: eating 50 hard boiled eggs, drinking 1.5 L of water in 12 seconds without puking and Triathlons.
December 6th, the Laguna Phuket Triathlon (pronounced poo-ket, but guess my phonetic translation), Thailand. This brings me to a major point of this deployment; I am not coming back to the states for my R and R, but using my leave to travel Asia. I am also not using my leave for as much drunken debauchery as before, but to compete in my first triathlon. This brings up a few different issues that I will address in later blogs. I don't want to dish up all the information in my first two entries. Thanks for reading
- Austin

Photo: The training table.