Illinois Guard To Vermont
Guard choppers from Illinois to assist Vermont recovery effort
Outside assistance from other state’s National Guard units is needed because the Vermont National Guard’s helicopter fleet is deployed on a mission in Iraq.
by Sam Hemingway, free press
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110830/NEWS02/110830022/
BlackHawk_Helicopter_USArmy
Eight helicopters on loan from the Illinois National Guard were expected to arrive Tuesday night in Vermont to help the Vermont National Guard deliver food, medicine, water and other supplies to 13 Vermont towns cut off from the rest of the state in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene.
The outside helicopter support is needed because all six of the Vermont Guard’s Black Hawk helicopters are still in Iraq, where they and 55 Vermont soldiers are wrapping up a yearlong hospital transport mission, said Lt. Lloyd Goodrow, spokesman for the Vermont Guard.
The eight helicopters being sent in include six massive, double-bladed Chinook choppers and two smaller Black Hawk helicopters, said Vermont Guard Capt. Doran Metzger.
The New Hampshire National Guard sent over two of its Black Hawk helicopters on Monday. The two were used to transport Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate, Gov. Peter Shumlin, Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vt., and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., on a survey of flood-damaged areas in the state.
Peter Coffey, deputy director for operations and logistics for the state’s Emergency Management Division, said the papers requesting the Illinois assistance were approved Tuesday afternoon, and the eight helicopters were en route to Vermont.
Goodrow said the Vermont soldiers in Iraq are on their way home and should be back in the state late this week or early next week. The six helicopters, however, will need to undergo an extensive maintenance check to remove desert sand and grit from their machinery before they are cleared for use back in the state.
Goodrow said that process could take a month to complete. One of the Vermont Guard’s missions in the aftermath of the Irene-related devastation is to get supplies to residents in about a dozen stranded cut-off towns.
That is being done via very small deliveries being carried out by the Guard’s two Lakota and two Kiowa helicopters, which are much smaller than Black Hawks and Chinooks.
Metzger said he was on one of the Lakota flights Tuesday and managed to deliver two boxes of MREs, or ready-to-eat meals, to Rochester one of the towns with no road access to the outside. Each box contained 24 of the meals. Rochester has about 1,100 residents.
Goodrow said the Guard continued to make deliveries to stranded isolated towns during the day.
“We’d be in a very different scenario if they were here,” Goodrow said, referring to the Vermont Guard’s Black Hawk helicopters now in Iraq. Goodrow said the Guard has both a federal and a state mission and, thanks to the help from Illinois and New Hampshire, expects to be able to perform both functions.
“Our primary federal mission is a combat mission in Iraq that is saving lives,” he said. “And we are able to reach out across state lines at home to allow us to do both our state and federal missions.”
Contact Sam Hemingway at 660-1850 or e-mail at shemingway@burlingtonfreepress.com. Follow Sam on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SamuelHemingway.
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September 1st, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Mea culpa. Kyrie elision.
These wars have been a curse to our people and this is but the latest omen of our sin: our “national” guard cannot guard its own nation.
Surely every Oath Keeper understands our American Federation is doomed. This is merely one of a hundred failures and mistakes that are utterly predictable and unavoidable as the regime is overextended; the populace slothful, lazy and demanding; and too few “True Americans” are left to bear the burden of all on their own weary shoulders.
How much longer will good American boys piss away the prime of their lives, if not their life itself, in service of a population and political regime that hates their guts and wants them dead? How many businessmen will bother to risk hearth-and-home when their risk increases daily while the reward, if any, is subject to summary confiscation and they are subject to capricious criminal and civil prosecution that might cost their lives should they so much as look crosswise to a federal goon during the raid?
Those VTARNG helos are supposed to be in Vermont to render aid, assistance or defense to the citizens of Vermont. Likewise all the other “assets” purchased with involuntarily taken “taxes” for benefit of any and everyone in the world except ourselves.
(Oh but the excuses and rationalizations are wonderful, the best money can buy from the Wizards of Madison Avenue, guaranteed to silence all but the stoutest critic, if not win them over completely to the cuasus belli.)
May I humbly suggest we each of us repent and pray to our LORD God Almighty for forgiveness and mercy while we are still free to do so.
The Spirit of 1776
September 2nd, 2011 at 9:38 am
I think this is an interesting use of the National Guard. In my opinion I do not have a problem with the Guard helping out its citizens or others in need.. its when they use their military might like in Katrina trying to disarm folks that gets my hair raised. I was wondering and someone may be able to answer this. Who does the legal “militias” answer to or take orders from.. the guard or the governor directly? Spirit of 76 well said !
September 8th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
I thought 76′ was over the top on this one, you sound like Westboro Baptist Church folks… The Guard answers to it’s chain of command, they deploy after the Governor calls them up with a declaration. In TN they are under the Military Department along with the TN Emergency Management Agency.