Fort Leonard Wood will soon have a third sizeable unit of active duty personnel deployed to Iraq when the 150 members of the 463rd Military Police Company leave for the battlefield.
They’ll join their engineer colleagues in the larger 5th Engineer Battalion and 94th Engineer Battalion in that country, though they’ll primarily be doing policing work rather than engineer tasks such as hunting down and destroying improvised explosive devices.
During a Friday afternoon deployment ceremony in temporary quarters at Training Area 183 on the post, Maj. Gen. Bill McCoy, commander of Fort Leonard Wood, said he’s pleased with the training and readiness levels of the unit but cautioned its soldiers against overconfidence.
“About half of you have been to Iraq before; don’t think it is the same place,” McCoy said. “Be prepared to quickly make an assessment and respond accordingly.”
McCoy said the warrior police of the unit need to remember the terms of their enlistment when they swore an oath to defend the American constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.
“That is what this is about,” McCoy said. “You may have gone before, you may never have gone before, but never forget that you are there to defend America.”
Lt. Col. Jesse Galvan, who commands the company’s next-highest unit, the 342nd Military Police Battalion, said the 463rd Military Police Company’s last deployment to Iraq ended successfully only 17 months ago. Most of those soldiers have since moved on to other units, and getting the unit’s equipment repaired and new personnel retrained was a challenge, he said.
“You were undermanned, underequipped and under-resourced,” Galvan said. “We all know that Fort Leonard Wood is not a power projection platform.”
Despite Fort Leonard Wood’s primary role as a training and doctrine installation rather than a forces command installation, Galvan said the “worker bees” on post need to be commending for stepping up to the challenge of getting the unit ready to go to war.
The company commander, Capt. Eric Minor, alluded to a speech by former president and five-star general Dwight Eisenhower in telling his soldiers that he was very pleased by their motivation.
“In a time when many of your peers outside the military have placed privilege above their principles, you have sacrificed many of your privileges for principle,” Minor said.
Speaking before the deployment ceremony, Pfc. Kelsey Curry, 20, said Iraq will be her second overseas deployment. She’s already served in Korea, but admitted the desert heat will be a challenge to her from her experience growing up in Alaska.
“I’m actually dreading it, honestly, but they teach you what to do with keeping hydrated to handle the heat,” Curry said.
Michigan native Spec. Patrick Hipple, 26, said he’s listened carefully to those cautions.
“They teach us a lot about how to handle heat injuries,” Hipple said. “I don’t know if I’m ready for 100 degrees, so I’m really not looking forward to 140 degrees.”
Curry said she knows comfort and privileges can’t be priorities for her life as a soldier—a reality driven home to her by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
“I was in high school when 9/11 happened,” Curry said. “It really scared me, and I didn’t want to just go to school; I wanted to do something about it.”
Pfc. Nicholas Urze, 19, a St. Robert resident whose father is also in the MP Corps, said he wanted to follow his father into the military.
“I’m excited; I want to do what I’m trained for,” Urze said, noting that some of his friends in the civilian world haven’t chosen good paths for their lives.
Speaking after the deployment ceremony, Minor said that as the company commander, he’s glad to see hard work produced a motivated unit that’s prepared for deployment. He’s spent two tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, and said he’s confident the unit is ready to go back to Iraq.
Being understaffed and under-resourced was a challenge, he said, but it provided a benefit for the soldiers of allowing some to perform tasks that are above their routinely assigned duties.
“Doing jobs somewhat above their rank and above their rank and above their pay grade is a benefit that they fill a role of someone higher,” Minor said. “There was a tremendous amount of preparation in a short period of time.”
Minor said a 90-day assessment showed that the unit is prepared and ready for deployment, and credited some of that to the support of the civilian off-post community.
“This is a part of the small-town environment that’s part of being at Fort Leonard Wood,” Minor said.