 |
It's July, it's warm - it must be county
fair time
Illness forces Hitchcock to retire
A changing of the guard at the Newberg
school board
| A
military spectacle |
A troop of Oregon National Guardsmen
drills in loading up for deployment |
By Andrea Olson, Newberg Graphic
intern
E-mail Andrea at aolson@eaglenewspapers.com
|
North
Springbrook Road will continue to be closed to through traffic for the remainder of the
week as the Oregon Army National Guard continues loading equipment destined for training
exercises.
Men and women in full uniform milled about on Monday among Army vehicles that make
Humvees look like commuter cars. Soldiers gathered under shade when possible to escape the
over-80 degree heat; many wore portable water bladders on their backs.
The National Guard is training for the transportation of equipment that would be
necessary should the Guard be mobilized. Over 400 pieces of equipment are being loaded
onto rail cars for transport to Colorado where soldiers will undergo two weeks of
training.
The loading of the machinery onto the rail cars is the focus of the training
happening along Springbrook. The move must be carefully orchestrated and will take days.
Machinery, including Humvees, generators, engineering equipment and tanks of
drinking water from around the states have assembled in Newberg over the course of the
past week.
“(There are) no weapons here,” said Capt. Carter McReynolds, explaining
that weapons transport requires more security clearance than this operation has.
Loading the machines onto the rail cars is a precise process taking into
consideration the size and weight of each vehicle, McReynolds said. The order in which the
vehicles are loaded is carefully calculated and executed with caution. Only one vehicle is
allowed to move on the rail cars at a time.
“I’d rather have a piece of equipment break than a soldier break,”
McReynolds said.
All told, the loading is estimated to take five days; McReynolds said it would take
three days to load up all the equipment a brigade would need if everyone was fully trained
and there were no problems.
In the event of mobilization to a location overseas, the equipment would be moved
by rail to a port where it could be loaded onto a boat or into airplanes. McReynolds
estimated that such an operation would take eight days.
Overseas mobilization is not the only situation for which this exercise is
preparation. These same procedures would be followed should the Guard be called across the
country for either security or humanitarian purposes.
“If there’s a natural disaster in the states, we’re there,”
McReynolds said.
This is the first rail-loading exercise the Oregon Army National Guard has done
since 1998. Newberg was chosen as the site for this exercise because the rail line they
are using is not considered high-demand and can hold the number of rail cars (about 30)
necessary.
“I’d like to thank A-dec (Inc.) immensely for use of this property,”
McReynolds said, adding “the city of Newberg has been extremely helpful” in
getting this exercise organized, as well.
The exercise should be completed by Monday. Springbrook Road, which has been closed
from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., will reopen for business, and some of the National Guard soldiers
will depart for training in Colorado.
“It’s intense, it’s fun, it’s playing in the dirt,”
McReynolds said with a grin of the training.
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From July 14,
2004, Newberg Graphic
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