Air Guard Members Prepare For Call-Up

Spokane area members of the Washington Air National Guard were trying to figure out Wednesday if and when they will be going to Europe to support NATO operations against Yugoslavia.

Around noon, the Department of Defense released a memorandum on its Web site that the 141st Air Refueling Wing at Fairchild Air Force Base would send eight of its KC-135 tankers and 238 personnel to Europe.

However, unit officials were puzzled by the memo because they hadn’t received official word of a deployment.

“A public Web site does not constitute an alert order for that unit,” said Maj. Phil Logan, spokesman for the Washington National Guard at Camp Murray near Tacoma.

“We are still trying to verify the information. It came from the DOD, but we weren’t aware of it until this afternoon,” Logan said.

Members of the 141st are listed among the 2,173 reservists and 35 attack planes and refueling aircraft activated by the Air Force and Navy on Wednesday to support an expansion of NATO’s air campaign against Yugoslavia.

The call-ups, authorized under a plan announced by the Defense Secretary William Cohen last week, bring to 4,409 the number of reservists ordered to active duty for the Yugoslavia crisis.

President Clinton has authorized the Pentagon to activate as many as 33,102 reservists.

Last week, the 141st Air Refueling Wing got some indication it would be called up, said Capt. Kay Steward, unit spokeswoman.

“I can tell you that in all likelihood we will be called up shortly,” Steward said. “But we have not received a warning order or a deployment order. But all the information we’ve received indicates to us that we will be called up very soon.”

A warning order tells a unit to prepare for being called up. That means making sure all personnel have the proper paperwork and vaccinations. Crew members are to let their employers know they may soon be called away and family affairs are to be put in order.

“Usually, within a day of the warning order you get the deployment order,” Steward said. “Then you get 96 hours. In this case, we will probably leave well inside the 96-hour window.”

Though the 141st has not received a warning order, its air crew and maintenance personnel have been getting ready as if there was one, Steward said.

If sent, members of the unit could be gone for up to 179 days. While the DOD has said 238 people will be sent, that doesn’t match a lower - but undisclosed - number the unit had anticipated, Steward said.

The 141st has 10 KC-135 tankers that refuel other jets in midair. The unit has roughly 800 members.

If sent to Europe, it would be the biggest deployment for the 141st since two jets and roughly 30 personnel were sent to Geilenkirchen Air Base in Germany in January.

That deployment ended with the fatal crash of one of the unit’s tankers. Four men were killed. It is the only crash the unit has suffered since it began flying tankers in 1976.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.