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165th Airlift Wing
Deploys
To Support Enduring Freedom
Two C-130s from Savannah’s 165th Airlift Wing and approximately 80 Georgia
Air Guardsmen departed Savannah in March to return to the Middle East to
fly cargo and personnel in Afghanistan. The unit is operating from
an undisclosed location. The unit was first activated in April 2003, and
for some Airmen of the Savannah unit this marks their third or fourth
deployment supporting Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi
Freedom. Aircraft and personnel from Savannah's 165th spent most of 2005
deployed to Uzbekistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
Georgia Air Guard Names
Top NCO and Airmen for 2006
If there is merit in the old Air Force adage that the Air Force is run by
the NCO corps, then the future for Georgia’s Air Guard looks to be in
extraordinarily good hands. Recently three NCOs from the 116th
Air Control Squadron and one from the 224th Joint
Communications Support Squadron captured state NCO and Airmen of the Year
honors.
- Senior Master Sgt. Rory H. Dunn , First Sergeant of the 116 ACW
Medical Group was selected as the First Sergeant of the Year.
-- The Senior NCO of the Year honor was awarded to Master Sgt. Benjamin
Morris of the 116th Logistics Readiness Squadron.
-- Tech. Sgt. Thomas E. Naldrett of the 224th Joint
Communications Support Squadron was named NCO of the Year.
-- Senior Airman Andrew L. Maddox of the 116th ACW
Operations Support Squadron, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance
Flight was named Airman of the Year for Georgia.
Full Story
Woodland Training Course
Tests Counter Terrorism Teams
As light of the newly dawned day began to brighten the Southwestern
sky above LaGrange, civilian law enforcement officers and Soldiers of the
Georgia Army National Guard walked, side by side with deliberate quietness
along the leaf and limb strewn, uneven ground of the heavily wooded Camp
Pioneer. For six days the Georgia Guard's Counterdrug Task Force acted as
trainers fo the officers from local and state law enforcement during
the Counterdrug Task Force Woodland Training Course. Support for much of the
fieldwork was provided by Counterdrug’s RAID helicopters.
Full Story
Georgia DOD
Employees
Earn Public Recognition Awards
Some 23 employees of the Georgia Department of Defense have been named as
2006 Public Employee Recognition Award winners. The awards will be
presented in a ceremony April 26. The Public Employee Recognition Award
honors the achievement and dedication of government employees. Individual
or team nominations can be made. Each award covers service during the
preceding calendar year in any of seven categories.
See complete list of winners
Guard Takes On Health Issues
Through New Program
The
Army National Guard is gearing up to take on the enemies of its Soldiers,
but among the enemies it’s preparing for are the mental, physical
and spiritual needs of the troops and civilian workforce. This latest
initiative – Well-Being – is based on the active Army program, and is
being touted at several meetings by Guard officials nationwide, and the
tour stopped in Georgia during March. Well-Being, according to Lt. Gen.
Clyde A. Vaughn, director of the Army National Guard, supports the human
dimension. “Our mission as leaders is to keep the personal,
physical, mental and spiritual state of Soldiers, families and our
civilians in mind as it contributes to the readiness of the ARNG” he said.
Full Story
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Pictured above is a room full of hundreds
of yellow ribbons ready to be hung along the return routes in Tifton
and Albany to welcome home Soldiers
of Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion 121st Infantry.
48th Brigade Gets Ready
To Head Home
Across Georgia, families of deployed 48th
Brigade members are preparing for the homecoming of their Soldiers
after a year in Iraq. The first plane of 48th Soldiers is scheduled to land at
Hunter Army Airfield, in Savannah, in mid-April. All of the Brigade
is expected to be back to Georgia by mid-May. Soldiers will spend
about a week outprocessing at Fort Stewart before returning to their
home armories to wrap-up final details and be released from active
duty. A number of celebrations are planned to welcome the units when
they roll into their hometowns. Other cities are planning parades or
other events for later in the summer.
Sanford, Serkedakis Named
Army Guard's NCO, Soldier of the Year
A Smyrna Soldier and another from Calhoun were named the
Georgia Army National Guard's Soldier and Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) of
the year, respectively, for 2006. They were among six Guardsmen to compete
for these honored titles at the Guard's Regional Training Institute
in
Macon. Both go on to
represent the Georgia Army Guard in the 1st U.S. Army -- South Soldier and NCO
of the Year competitions scheduled for April in
Puerto Rico. This year's top enlisted
Soldier is Spc. Nickolas W.
Serkedakis, a military policeman with
Kennesaw's 190th Military Police Company. The 2006 NCO of the Year is
Staff Sgt. Todd A. Sandford, a fire support instructor for RTI.
Full Story
3rd Grader Demonstrates
True Meaning of Patriotism
By Sgt George Wagner
Spencer Lamonica, a 3rd Grader at
Yargo Elementary School in WInder has been doing her part to support the
troops since 2003. That’s when she asked her mother, Nicola, about the war
in Iraq. “In May, Spencer asked me about the war after seeing a news story
about it. So I told her all about 9/11 and showed her the pictures of the
towers falling.” explained her mother. “While we were at a grocery store in town
she saw Master Sergeant Bartlett in uniform and took off running after
him. She hugged him and thanked for protecting us.” She’s been bringing
baked goods to the 1/121st Infantry ever since.
Full Story
Deployed Georgia Airmen
Get Visit from the Top
More than 200 Airmen of the 116th Air Control Wing were
visited for four days last month by the Georgia Air Guard’s most senior
leaders. Major Gen. Scott A. Hammond, commander Georgia Air Guard,
accompanied by Command Chief Master Sergeant Betty Morgan, the Air Guard’s command
chief, traveled to Al Udied Airbase in Qatar. During their stay with the Robins
unit, the general flew as a E-8C Joint STARS crew member on a 12-hour
reconnaissance mission high over Iraq.“ For more than 31 years, I’ve
flown, trained and waited to fly a combat mission,” admitted Hammond. “I
am glad I finally got the chance, even if I was only as an observer.”
Full Story
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Deployment Update |
878th Engineers Receive
New Tools in Fight
Against Roadside Bombs
Guardsmen from Georgia’s A Company, 878
Engineer Battalion, currently deployed to Iraq under the 101st
Airborne Division (Air Assault), have a new tool in their fight
against the ever-present threat of improvised explosive devices, or
IEDs. Meerkat route clearance vehicles are now being used by soldiers
on the Company’s road crater repair teams. A Company, headquartered in
Swainsboro, GA, received the new equipment shortly after arriving in
Iraq last December.
Full Story
116th Security Forces
Shows State Pride in Iraq 
The Georgia Air National Guard 's 116th
Security Forces in Iraq display a Georgia State Flag in Iraq. (USAF
photo)
117th Blends Old and New
Technology in War Over Iraq
In the sky over Iraq, technology developed in the 1940s helps fight a 21st
century war. From their unique vantage point, the Kirkuk long-range radar
surveillance site searches the sky. It’s almost as if the slow cyclonic
pace hypnotizes everything in the airspace to spill their deep dark
secrets -- friend or foe? At the site, Airmen of the Georgia Guard's
117th Air Control Squardon, work around the clock searching for threats
and maintaining air superiority. The Kingpins, named so because they are
in control of the sky, are using technology that’s been around since World
War II, but has evolved into a field of microchips and computers.
Full Story
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A look at what happened in
April in Georgia National Guard history:…
1781, American Revolution:
In the backcountry,
on both the South Carolina and Georgia sides of the Savannah River,
and in Savannah, not everyone concurred about independence. There were
many colonists still loyal to England who rejected the independence
effort and regarded colonists who fought for it with contempt. When
Patriot militia crossed into Wilkes County and moved against Augusta
in April, The Royal Georgia Gazette in Savannah reported, “…a
set of the most barbarous wretches that ever enfected any country
amounting to some say to 200, others 250, lately crossed the Savannah
from the northward, surprised and murdered several Loyalists….” The
Reverend James Seymour in Augusta described the patriots as “Rebel
Banditti.”
1864, Civil War:
Georgia’s citizen
militia and Confederate regulars were about to be tested by Union
forces under Major Gen. William T. Sherman. In April, Sherman received
orders from Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant for the destruction of Gen.
Joseph E. Johnston’s army as well as any militia forces he might
encounter during the campaign for Atlanta. ”You, I propose to move
against Johnston’s army, to break it up, and to get into the interior
of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage
you can against their resources,” Sherman’s orders read in part.
Sherman marshaled his forces during April for the start of this
campaign which begin in May He later stated: “Neither Atlanta, nor
Augusta, nor Savannah was the objective, but the ARMY OF JOSEPH
JOHNSTON, go where it might.” Still, Sherman was mindful of the
strategic importance of Atlanta as the railroad center of the
Confederacy and of all the supplies produced there for the war, and
the militia that assisting in protecting the city, its outskirts and
its resources.
Complied by Gail Parnelle, GaARNG Historical Section |
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