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118th Personnel Services Soldiers Mobilize for OIF Three

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Steve Reece, left, a personal technician, and Capt. J.D. Collie, commander of the 118th Personal Service Detachment, review the unit’s files prior to mobilization. The unit is scheduled to mobilize to Fort Benning and then the middle east next month..

Soldiers of Georgia ’s 118th Personnel Services Detachment are gearing up for Operation Iraqi Freedom III where it will perform primary mission of providing personnel services to American coalition units. Eight Soldiers leave Monday for training at Fort Benning , while the unit’s main body continues getting ready to depart for Benning Oct. 25.

The 18-month assignment is the unit’s first deployment anywhere, especially to a combat zone, said Capt. J.D. Collie, the 118th’s commander.

 “It may be our first deployment but I’m confident in the skills and abilities of our Soldiers to get us there [in country], accomplish the mission and get us all home again,” he said.

Collie, who will be one of the eight going to Benning Monday, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Steve Reece, a military personnel technician with the 118th, agreed that they hoped the unit would be able to send an advanced party to Kuwait . That, Reece added, is where much of the unit will be during its deployment.

“From what we know, right now, our people will separate and provide personnel support at camps Arifjon, Buehring, Doha , Victory and Virginia ,” he explained. “Some of them also will go to Baghdad , possibly to conduct casualty reporting out of facilities at Baghdad International Airport .”

Whether that happens will be determined by the chain of command after the unit arrives in Kuwait , Reece said. That is one of the reasons getting an advance party in country would be a great thing, Collie added.

“That, and the fact that it would allow us the opportunity to meet the unit we’ll replace and get a better understanding of where we’ll be and the mission with which we’ll be tasked,” he said.

While this may be the 118^th’s first deployment, it’s the third for its new commander.

Collie, who has commanded the 118^th since June, was commander of Monroe ’s 178^th Military Police Company. He and the 178^th spent 2002 guarding detainees at camps X-ray and Delta at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay , Cuba , and then returned stateside to guard access points to Fort Benning for a year and a half.

“Being an MP, it's been quite a change for me to step into the Adjutant General arena,” Collie said of his new post. “I spend a lot of time with my nose buried in various books learning the personnel side of the house.”

And although he’s still learning, he said, it’s because of Soldiers like Reece and the 118^th as a whole that he’s confident the detachment will see its mission in OIF 3 through to a successful end.