Keeping Your Guard Up War Exercises Draw 7,800 To Training Center Near Yakima

Kurt Froelich spends most of his days as a Snohomish County truck driver, but this week he’s donning camouflage fatigues and putting into practice the skills he learned during once-a-month weekend drills and weekly meetings.

The first sergeant is a member of the 81st Infantry Brigade of the Washington state Army National Guard, which is holding a live-fire training session at the Yakima Training Center.

“It’s the one time of year you can put into practice what you learned on weekends,” Froelich said Tuesday after emerging from a tent covered by radar-deflecting camouflage netting.

The first of about 7,800 guardsmen and women arrived Saturday at the Army’s 324,000-acre training area north of Yakima. The brigade’s six battalions and nine companies come from across the state to hold make-believe war exercises that polish their skills use real ammunition, including Abrams tanks’ 120mm cannon, 155mm self-propelled howitzer gunnery, and Bradley armored vehicle 30mm gunnery, as well as air attacks.

The annual training exercise began with the creation of a Tactical Operations Center and Brigade Supply Area in preparation for “the battle,” Lt. Col. Chris Hamlin said.

A veritable small city, the nerve center supports and coordinates gunnery and artillery units taking up positions along the rolling hills and ridges.

The desert demands self-sufficiency.

“There’s a dentist’s chair out there right now,” said Maj. Mary Forbes, a full-time guardsman with the 181st Support Battalion.

“Food, fuel, beans and bullets” are in constant demand, said Maj. Jo Ann Spencer, a full-time active Guard reserve officer.

The operations center even pumps out a newspaper, “The Raven,” which is produced by the 81st Infantry Brigade’s Civil Military Affairs Department. The paper is printed in Ellensburg and then shipped back to soldiers in the field.

Editor John Sharrett, reporter Milton “Jake” Jacobson and photographer Steven Brown try to keep soldiers in touch with the outside world.

“Everybody wants something different,” said Sharrett, a Gig Harbor resident and student interested in graphic design.

He gives them the sports news they crave, but they also get features such as the Dear Abby-like column “Dear Crusty Old NCO,” in addition to major news items, Sharrett said.