Indiana Guard units deployed

Two Indiana Army National Guard units have mobilized about 1,320 soldiers for a possible war with Iraq -- more than any other reserve command in the nation, new Department of Defense data show.\nThe detachments, one in Fort Wayne, the other in Jasper, are part of the 76th Separate Infantry Brigade, one of the nation's 15 elite reserve units trained for rapid deployment.\nThe Fort Wayne unit, the 1st Battalion of the 293rd Infantry, already has 670 soldiers on the ground in Kuwait. About 650 troops with Jasper's 1st Battalion, 152nd Infantry have been deployed, but a National Guard spokeswoman would not discuss their location.\nThe units are known as enhanced separate brigades and were created after the Persian Gulf War to swiftly augment regular Army forces in combat.\n"They have a very active training schedule throughout the year that helps them focus," Maj. Gary Smith, one of a handful of officers who stayed in Fort Wayne after the deployment, told The Indianapolis Star.\n"They, along with the Jasper unit, are really setting that bar in saying that this is the new National Guard."\nThe Army has relied more on these forces as its budget declined.\nThe results have been mixed, said retired Army Lt. Gen. William E. Odom of the Hudson Institute, a conservative Indianapolis think tank.\n"When you start mobilizing and you've cut the Army so much, you have to do something because you've got to have soldiers," Odom said. "If you have a National Guard NFL team that just practices two nights a week, how well do you think they'd do in the NFL?"\nThe Guard's 15 enhanced separate brigades provide fighting forces at about 25 percent to 30 percent of the cost of regular active units, according to a 2000 report by the General Accounting Office.\nThe same report also found that many of the units did not meet readiness standards set by the federal government.\nIndiana Guard officials said part of the 76th Brigade underwent an evaluation at Fort Polk, La., in 2001 and performed extremely well. It's likely one factor that caused the unit to be called up so quickly.\n"Their training record has been stellar," said Brig. Gen. T.J. Wright of the 38th Infantry Division. "That's why those guys are the first called when it comes time."\nOverall, more than 3,100 Indiana reservists had mobilized as of mid-February, or about 15 percent of all reservists available in the state.\nWhile the commitment is far less than Texas, with 8,268 mobilized, or California, with 7,957, no single reserve unit in the country has prepared more troops for war than Fort Wayne's 293rd.\nThe 152nd, from Jasper, ranked third out of more than 3,000 units for the number of reservists it had mobilized.\nSpc. Brian Clemens of Kokomo, who was the first Indiana National Guard member killed overseas since the Gulf War, was attached to the 293rd.\nLt. Col. Dan Stoneking, a Department of Defense spokesman, said the military does not consider geography when mobilizing reservists.\nInstead, it looks at readiness, training and the needs of commanders in the field.\nOdom, with the Hudson Institute, said that because so many of the Guard members in special brigades come from the same region, it creates a higher risk to a community.\n"It's a very disproportionate casualty risk if it's not shared evenly over the state and the country," he said.