15 years ago today, on 28 May 1999, Company B, 3rd Battalion, 153rd Infantry from Fordyce Arkansas was mobilized to support the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf. Two 133-man companies from Arkansass enhanced 39th Infantry Brigade provided force security at two locations for about seven months. The units were Company B, 3rd Battalion, 153rd Infantry from Fordyce and Company B, 2nd Battalion from Batesville. They replaced an active Army element from the 82nd Airborne Division. The Fordyce unit, from southern Arkansas, was mobilized in late May 1999 and reported to the central part of Saudi Arabia in mid-June for about 120 days of duty. The Batesville unit, from northern Arkansas, reported for duty in mid-September and began its 120 days of security duty in early October 1999. Both units were on active duty for a total of 155 days. Other National Guard infantry companies to continued with that mission in 2000 and beyond. The mobilization of 266 citizen-soldiers significantly increased the National Guards participation with allied forces in Southwest Asia since the Persian Gulf War. They were the first two Army Guard ground combat units earmarked for duty with the six-year-old Southern Watch operation charged with keeping Iraqi military aircraft out of the no-fly zone that covers the southern half of that nation. The request for the infantry units was significant, Guard officials pointed out, because it comes on the heels of a 144-soldier Virginia Army Guard infantry companys successful six-month peacekeeping mission at a Sava River bridgehead in Bosnia and Croatia that ended April 1998. That was the first time a National Guard infantry unit had been sent overseas since Indiana Rangers were deployed to Vietnam 30 years earlier.
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 12:25:20 +0000
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