Soldiers’ bonds often go deeper than Guard

FORT BLISS, Texas – The brotherhood of soldiers runs deep, but in the Idaho National Guard it can run all the way back to elementary school.

While regular Army soldiers rotate every couple of years, Guard members sometimes spend decades training together and often have known one another even before their military careers.

Consider Capt. Mitch Smith, of Burley, and Sgt. 1st Class Roy Barrera, of Boise. They tell slightly different stories about the first time they met in Paul, but they agree on one thing: One of Smith’s toy race cars came up missing.

“He stole it, I know he did,” Smith said.

“He still thinks I stole it,” Barrera said. He denies it.

The incident occurred nearly 30 years ago in elementary school.

“He was like the bully in school,” Smith said.

This Barrera doesn’t deny.

“You’ve got to be careful who you beat up on because he might be your boss some day,” Barrera said with a laugh.

The two men now serve together in Bravo Company of the 2-116th Armor Cavalry Division, training in Texas for a mission this year to Iraq. Smith is the company commander, and Barrera is a platoon sergeant working under his command.

Their long history with each other is not unusual for the Guard.

“It’s not at all uncommon for a Guardsman to join a particular unit that meets at a particular armory and spend most or all of their career there,” said Lt. Col. Tim Marsano, public affairs officer for the 116th.

The members serve their Guard training – a weekend a month and two weeks a year – together on top of seeing one another around town, in the grocery store and at the corner bar.

They’re friends in civilian life and fellow soldiers in their military lives, unlike regular Army soldiers, who are assigned to units as strangers and transfer out every three or four years.

Smith and Barrera both graduated from Minico High School in Rupert in 1988. Two more classmates, Sgt. Aaron Hart and Staff Sgt. Ron Eckley, both of Burley, also serve under Smith in the 116th. So does Sgt. Harold Carper, who graduated from the same high school a year later.

“You know them so well that when you tell them what needs to be done, you know it’s going to happen,” Smith said. “I know the story is you never want to command your friends, but they’ve made it a lot easier for me.”

Smith served two years in the Army. He didn’t like it as much as being in the National Guard.

In the Army, he said, “You never get to know anybody. You don’t develop those relationships.”

Sgt. 1st Class Rik Williamson, of Eagle, met Barrera about nine years ago at Gowen Field. They have been in the same company since 1997 and serve together as platoon leaders.

As Barrera and Williamson talked about their personal histories during a break in training at Fort Bliss earlier this month, they shared pizza for lunch – passing the same slice back and forth, taking bites until it was gone.

“We’re on a first-name basis. You don’t have that in the regular Army,” Williamson said.

“One of the strengths of the National Guard is members get to know each other more than a soldier on active duty might,” Marsano said. “You’re working with your neighbors, some whom you likely grew up with, and know their families. That can only help to build the esprit de corps you need if you’re going into a dangerous situation.”

Marsano said that despite their familiarity, members still must behave as professional soldiers and honor the chain of command.

“There might be a specialist who grew up with a lieutenant, and in that sense they are peers, but when that lieutenant gives a command, the specialist knows it must be done. It’s not up for discussion.”

The close ties between Guard members do have a potential downside: If a Guard member is wounded or killed in battle, it will take a heavy toll on other Guard members.

“We’re tight to the point it’s going to be like losing a brother, literally,” Williamson said. “Imagine your brother getting murdered, that’s the closest analogy I can think of. I get upset just thinking about it.”

Williamson had the duty of notifying an aunt who was the legal guardian of an Army soldier from Rupert who was killed in Iraq last March.

“I know what it’s like to go knock on the door of a survivor’s house,” he said. “I could see the look in her eyes, and I don’t want my wife or anyone else’s wife or girlfriend to deal with that.”

Guard members feel added pressure to ensure one another’s safety. When they go home, they say, they know they will have to face their fellow soldiers’ families.

“If we make the wrong call and someone pays the price for it, that’s something we have to bear,” Williamson said. “We have to live with that for the rest of our lives.”

Eckley described the Guard as “another family one weekend out of the month.”

And Barrera applies the family metaphor to the younger soldiers in his platoon.

“I looked at all these guys like they’re my kids,” he said.

The bonds between Guard members extend beyond the officers and senior enlisted men who have spent several tours together in the Guard.

Pfc. Kris Ohlensehlen and Spc. Jake Smith graduated from Jerome High School in 2001 and have known each other since junior high school.

During a battle exercise at the Fort Bliss training post, Smith was tagged as a wounded soldier, and Ohlensehlen happened to be the driver of the truck evacuating him.

“I felt a little more pressure to get him out of there,” Ohlensehlen said.