Photo By Scott Sturkol | Personnel with the 229th Engineer Company prepare to fire weapons March 11, 2003, at...... read more read more
Subscribe
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) officially started 20 years ago on March 19, 2003, as coalition forces that included U.S. Army troops who had trained at Fort McCoy began operations.
At Fort McCoy, the installation had already been busy operating a mobilization mission supporting the Global War on Terrorism that was part of the already ongoing worldwide operations for Operation Enduring Freedom that began on Oct. 7, 2001. So, when OIF began, the rotation of mobilizing units and service members for deployments just grew to include the OIF mission.
Specifically in March 2003, several things were taking place on the mobilization front. In the March 14, 2003, edition of the Fort McCoy Triad newspaper (later renamed The Real McCoy), a story by the Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office highlighted the work being done by the 107th Maintenance Company.
“The 107th Maintenance Company, a Wisconsin Army National Guard unit headquartered in Sparta with detachments in Viroqua and Sussex, has been assigned to support the Installation Materiel Maintenance Activity workforce in the Fort McCoy mission. Fort McCoy was assigned a mobilization mission as one of the Army's 15 power projection platforms.
“First Lt. Kevin Gregar, the 107th’s Maintenance Control officer, said the unit arrived at Fort McCoy in late January. Unit members are participating in the mission to ensure the equipment meets Army 10-20 standards before it is deployed, he said.
“Gary Flock, the IMMA supervisor, said that Griffin Services Inc., had been performing the IMMA mission for less than a month when the installation received the mobilization mission. The IMMA portion of the mobilization mission includes inspection, preventive maintenance and repair of equipment ranging from night-vision goggles and radio equipment to weapons and from
HUMVEES to heavy expanded mobility tactical trucks and large construction equipment.”
That same newspaper edition also reflected training taking place by the 1555th Quartermaster Detachment in another story by the Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office team.
“The Army's water needs during deployments are being met by units such as the 1555th Quartermaster Detachment, an Iowa National Guard unit headquartered at Dubuque,” the story states. “Capt. Wes Golden, unit commander, said the unit was mobilized earlier this year at
Fort McCoy to support Army needs. The unit was created in 1997 as a result of lessons learned during Operation Desert Shield/Storm.
“‘The Army had water purification units, but they didn’t realize how much water they
needed (during deployments),’ Golden said. ‘So this unit was one of many formed to
help overcome the shortages.’
“The unit can produce several thousand gallons of drinkable water per hour under optimum conditions,” the story states. Golden said the water can be used for a number of purposes including drinking, cooking, laundry, and showering. The unit uses reverse-osmosis water purification techniques and acts as a water distribution point for other units. The unit has been receiving water-purification equipment from several locations to update and augment its equipment, he said.
Also featured in the March 14, 2003, edition of the Triad newspaper was the 7228th Medical Support Unit. They unit was also supporting mobilizing service members as described in another story by the Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office.
“Five years of rehearsing the unit’s wartime mission during annual training sessions at Fort McCoy helped prepare personnel from the 7228th Medical Support Unit when the call came,” the story states. “Lt. Col. Beth Zimmer, the commander of the Columbia, Mo., Army Reserve medical unit, said the unit handles medical and dental readiness issues for military personnel mobilizing at Fort McCoy, one of the Army's 15 power-projection platforms.
“The 7228th also supports the installation's Troop Medical Clinic and staffs the Dental Clinic during mobilization,” the story states. “The unit conducts its mobilization mission at Fort McCoy under the command of Troop Command.
“‘We train doing the exact same mission during our annual training here,’ Zimmer said. ‘This had us well-prepared when we got a call do an actual mission.’”
Timothy Werstein, who currently works with the Fort McCoy Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security, was a sergeant first class back in March 2003 and was supporting the mobilization mission at Fort McCoy as a unit assistor assigned to the 1st Battalion, 338th Regiment (Training Support) of the 2nd Brigade, 85th Training Division (Training Support).
“As a unit assistor part of the Army’s active-component/reserve-component program, it consisted of highly skilled and qualified active duty noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and officers to teach, coach, and mentor reserve-component units,” Werstein said. “As a transportation NCO, I was assigned Army rail units in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Saint Louis. Part of my job was to ensure that my units were ready and prepared to deploy if called upon. I served with the 1st, 338th from April 2001 thru April 2004.”
Werstein said at the start of the mobilization, all the active-duty Soldiers were called in and told that the unit was being activated and all Reserve members of the unit would be activated.
“We would assist mobilizing and deploying Army Reserve units through Fort McCoy,” Werstein said. “The active-duty Soldiers were given the mission to shepherd our assigned units through the process of mobilization and deployment as part of the Mobilization Assistant Team. We were directly responsible to the commander of the 2nd, 85th Division to ensure that each unit was prepared and certified to deploy to the theater of operations. He would only sign off that a unit was prepared to deploy after each team validated that the unit was combat ready and had met all Army standards.”
“All the units that I was involved with were very motivated and eager to deploy,” Werstein said. “They trained day-in and day-out with the end goal of taking the fight to the enemy — all without much complaint. I met and served with some great individuals who put their personal lives on hold to go and fight for our country. Did we have some problem children, sure. But all-in-all, the vast majority were eager to do what was right and did everything in their power to be ready to deploy with their units.”
In 2011, the mobilization mission was coming to an end at Fort McCoy and so was the mission in Iraq. An article by the Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office discussed the end of the mission.
“Col. Scott McFarlane, Fort McCoy Deputy Commander for Mobilization, said for the past 10 years, ‘The mission went very well, smooth and successful. We took good care of the Soldiers.’
McFarlane said the mobilization and demobilization mission evolved from being supported by a small cell of Soldiers in the 6015th Garrison Support Unit soon after Sept. 11, 2001, to the full operation of the Mobilization Support Brigade with about 50 Soldiers, and about 160 contract civilians and mobilizing training support from about 600 Soldiers with the 181st Infantry Brigade for classroom and field exercises.
“Statistics through fiscal year 2011 show that 67,200 Soldiers mobilized, trained, and deployed through Fort McCoy, and 94,300 were demobilized at the installation. The mobilization figure also includes 10,500 Air Force and Navy personnel.”
On Dec. 15, 2011, after nearly nine years of conflict, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top U.S. military leaders observed the official end to OIF, a Department of Veterans of Affairs press release states. And according to the Department of Defense, nearly 4,500 U.S. military personnel were killed and nearly 32,000 wounded in the Iraq War.
Fort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.” Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on the Defense Visual Information Distribution System at https://www.dvidshub.net/fmpao, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” and on Twitter by searching “usagmccoy.”
Also try downloading the Digital Garrison app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base.
(Former Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office members Lou Ann Mittelstadt and Robert Schuette contributed to this article.)
| Date Taken: | 03.17.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 03.17.2023 13:32 |
| Story ID: | 440659 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 373 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, OIF 20th Anniversary: Fort McCoy was fully engaged in mobilization mission at start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, by Scott Sturkol, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
