Idaho battalion gets ready to go to Iraq

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – For Jennifer Siler of Pocatello, February may never be the same.

It was the month her husband, Shane, realized his dream by becoming a firefighter for the city.

It also was when they bought a house for their family of five.

Then on Feb. 29, they learned the First Battalion of the 148th Field Artillery, in which Shane Siler is a staff sergeant, was being put on alert for active duty.

Since then, about 560 members of the 1-148th, part of the Army National Guard’s 116th Armor Cavalry Brigade, have been getting ready to go to war.

On July 3, its men and women will fly to Fort Bliss in Texas for three months of training. After that come exercises at Fort Polk in Louisiana, and by November, they expect to be in Iraq.

“I think for the most part, we’ve all had enough time to get ready,” said Siler, a leader of the 1-148th’s Family Readiness Group. “For quite a while it’s been hanging over us. Everyday it’s starting to get a little more real. I kind of wish it would be over with.”

The battalion’s Service Battery, based in Idaho Falls, has been busy this week taking care of the logistics, loading heavy equipment onto railroad flatcars. In all, there were to be 50 cars moving south on Friday, said Lt. Dave Darney, a Logistics and Transportation Officer.

Eastern Idaho has plenty of people who have family members involved in the war, but the 1-148th’s involvement is bound to intensify the reality of the situation for a lot of people, said Darney, 35.

“Everybody knows somebody that’s going,” he said.

A regular Army veteran who received his officer’s commission in August 2001, Darney said morale in the Guard is high.

“Once in your life you have an opportunity to serve something bigger than yourself and your family. That is your country and the interests of your country,” he said.

Members of the 1-148th have an advantage in sharing common values and culture, and they enjoy an esprit de corps that might be harder to find in the regular Army.

“I would rather go with the Guard,” Darney said.

Loading a M109A5 Howitzer – a fully tracked, 55,000-pound self-propelled gun – and getting it halfway around the world is no small undertaking. But because other units have moved out ahead of them, they do not have to make the mistakes others have already made.

“Morale seems to be great so far,” Capt. Bill Miller said.

The greatest sorrow has been from the soldiers who have been told they would not be deploying with the battalion because it is over-strength.

Jennifer Siler said that for all the dread she feels at the prospect of her husband being away for 18 months, maybe even two years, she is proud he is going.

“I think it’s a good cause. I feel it (the war) was justified,” she said.